u
speak the truth?"

Dora's voice now assumed a cold decisiveness. "That is for you to
decide," she said merely. "Refuse to come with me and your father will
surely die of his madness. Consent--and he may live."

Eva could hesitate no longer. Bidding Dora wait, she ran up the stairs,
returning in a few moments garbed for the street.

They left the house together, but not before the butler had
surreptitiously slipped a large automatic into Eva's hand-bag.

In the Chinese temple, or Joss-house, the last devotee had departed. The
hanging lights had been dimmed and now the fantastic shapes with which
the place was decorated, seen in the subdued light, stood out in all
their shadowy weirdness.

From the raised dais, the seven-handed god assumed an added majesty and
awfulness, while, deep-seated as though from a smoldering caldron, two
points of fire gleamed from the god's eyes with utmost malevolence.

Slowly a panel in the wall slid back and the bestial visage of the
Strangler peered out.

After making sure that there was no one about, with noiseless tread he
glided into the temple.

Like a shadow, a second figure, that of a Chinaman, followed him. The
two made a complete circuit of the temple, stopping now and again to
examine some object which arrested their attention. Then, as if by a
prearranged signal, they both prostrated themselves before the fire god.

After making many obeisances they got to their feet and, as mysteriously
as they entered, slipped away in the same manner that they had come. A
panel closed behind them, but not the same panel.

The inner room in which they now found themselves was divided by a
partition that extended a few feet out into the temple room itself.

This room was vividly painted with weird figures depicting Chinese forms
of torture, a veritable charnel-house of what in Europe would be called
the Dark Ages. There were plenty of evidences that at no very distant
date this chamber had been in use to punish horribly those who had
offended against the fire god or the commands of the Tong leaders.

On one side of the partition was a large iron wheel to which was
attached a rope extending through the partition and forming a loop or
noose on the other side. The purpose of this device was only too
apparent. Once the neck of a victim was in the noose, a few turns of the
wheel, the noose would tighten, and the victim would be inevitably
strangled to death. In a slightly changed form it