d back with a gasp
of amazement that was echoed in his ear.

On the stairs, halfway down, a man was crouching in a posture of
frozen consternation: a small electric pocket-lamp burning brilliantly
in one hand, the other, lifted, grasping a weapon of some curious
sort, in the eyes of P. Sybarite more than anything else like, a small
black cannon: a hatless man in evening clothes, his face half blotted
out by a black mask that, enhancing the brightness of startled eyes
gleaming through its peepholes, left uncovered only his angular
muscular jaw and ugly, twisted mouth.

For a full minute (it seemed) not one of the three so much as drew
breath; while through the haze of dumfounderment in P. Sybarite's
brain there loomed the fact that once again _Kismet_ had played into
his hands to save his face in thus lending material body and substance
to the burglar of his desperate invention.

And then, as if from a heart of agony, the woman at his side breathed
a broken and tortured cry:

"You dog! So it's come to murder, has it?"

As if electrified by that ejaculation, P. Sybarite whipped up
Penfield's revolver and levelled it at the man on the stairs.

"Hands up!" he snapped. "Drop that gun!"

The answer was a singular sound--half a choking cough, half a
smothered bark--accompanied by a jet of fire from the strange weapon,
and coincident with the tinkling of a splintered electric bulb.

Instantly the hall was again drenched in darkness but little mitigated
by the light from the bedroom.

Heedless of consequences, in his excitement, P. Sybarite pulled
trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber, rose and fell half a
dozen times without educing any response other than the click of metal
against metal: demonstrating beyond question that the revolver was
unloaded.

From the hand of the marauder another tongue of flame licked out, to
the sound of the same dull, bronchial cough; and a bullet thumped
heavily into the wall beside P. Sybarite.

Enraged beyond measure, he drew back his worthless weapon and threw it
with all his might. And _Kismet_ winged the missile to the firing arm
of the assassin. With a cry of pain and anger, this last involuntarily
relaxed his grasp and, dropping his own pistol, stumbled and half
fell, half threw himself down to the next floor.

As this happened, a white arm was levelled over the shoulder of P.
Sybarite.

The woman took deliberate aim, fired--and missed.

XII

THE LADY OF THE