eness" which had
attracted universal attention.

As a less pleasant result, the staff of the _Gleaner_--and Sheard in
particular--were being kept under strict surveillance.

Sheard occupied an outside seat, and as the bus travelled rapidly
westward, Fleet Street and the Strand offered to his gratified gaze one
long vista of placards:

"M. DUQUESNE IN LONDON."

That item was exclusive to the _Gleaner_, and had been communicated to
Sheard upon a plain correspondence card, such as he had learnt to
associate with Severac Bablon. The _Gleaner_, amongst all London's
news-sheets, alone could inform a public, strung to a tense pitch of
excitement, that M. Duquesne, of the Paris police, was staying at the
Hotel Astoria, in connection with the Severac Bablon case.

As the bus stopped outside Charing Cross Station, Sheard took a quick
and anxious look back down the Strand. A taxi standing near the gates
attracted his attention, for, although he could not see the Stetson
inside, he noted that the cab was engaged, and, therefore, possibly
occupied. It was sufficient, in these days of constant surveillance, to
arouse his suspicion; it was more than sufficient to-day to set his
brain working upon a plan to elude the hypothetical pursuer. He had
become, latterly, an expert in detecting detectives, and now his wits
must be taxed to the utmost.

For he had a correspondence card in his pocket which differed from those
he was used to, in that it bore the address, 70A Finchley Road, and
invited him to lunch with Severac Bablon that day!

With the detectives of New York and London busy, and, now, with the
famous Duquesne in town, Sheard well might survey the Strand behind,
carefully, anxiously, distrustfully.

Severac Bablon, so far as he was aware, no longer had any actual hold
upon him. There was no substantial reason why he should not hand the
invitation--bearing that address which one man, alone, in London at that
hour cheerfully would have given a thousand pounds to know--to the
proper authorities. But Severac Bablon had appealed strongly,
irresistibly, to something within Sheard that had responded with warmth
and friendship. Despite his reckless, lawless deeds, the pressman no
more would have thought of betraying him than of betraying the most
sacred charge. In fact, as has appeared, he did not hesitate to aid and
abet him in his most outrageous projects. But yet he wondered at the
great, the incredible audacity of this