Zita were very familiar. Could
it be that Quentin was such a cad? She could not deny the evidence of
her eyes.

Indignantly she brushed past them and rushed up the stairs. Locke called
after her, but she refused to heed him. He flung off the arms of Zita
and dashed after her. But Eva was too quick for him. She opened the door
to the inventor's and went in, slamming it behind her. The lock snapped.
In an instant Eva saw what she had fled into. There was the Automaton,
near him the emissary with the knife--and on the floor their victim in a
pool of blood. She shrieked and tried to escape. But the lock had
snapped. Besides, the emissary, now directed by the monster, blocked her
retreat.

Outside, Locke pounded on the door, but could not open it. It was of
stout oak and would take some moments to break down.

The emissary circled in one direction. Eva turned, and there was the
Automaton advancing on her from the other side of the room.

On the table the clock-work bomb, delivered by Zita, whether with full
knowledge or not, ticked out the last few seconds before its timing at
precisely eight!

CHAPTER XIV

Eva flattened herself against the door at her back. She could feel and
hear Locke pounding on the other side. She thought that she would die of
sheer terror.

The Automaton raised his mighty fist, and Eva instinctively ducked under
the monster's arm. There was an inner room. Could she reach it in time?
Would the door be unlocked? At most she could only try.

The emissary tried to catch her, but she proved too quick for him. She
reached the door. It opened, and she flew into the room, slamming and
bolting it behind her.

Now she could hear the thunderous blows of the Automaton raining against
the door. One huge fist of the monster crashed through the panel. Eva
crouched down in a far corner and closed her eyes. At that instant the
time bomb exploded and the house was rocked to its foundations.

Everything was demolished. One entire side of the house was blown out.
The door leading to the workshop which a moment before Locke had been
vainly striving to open crashed full upon him and felled him,
half-stunned, to the floor.

The force of the explosion had dazed Eva. As for the Automaton and the
emissary, they had both been blown through a gaping aperture in the wall
to land in the garden beneath. Only Zita, in the lower hallway, was
totally untouched by the catastrophe.

Locke, dazed, crawled from under