The Sins of Séverac Bablon

AT "THE CEDARS"

Zoe was nonplussed. She was unable to believe that this deserted place was the spot referred to by Séverac Bablon. She still clung to the idea that there must be some mistake, though she had the evidence of her own eyes that the cottage was called Laurel Cottage.

The notion of writing a note and slipping it through the letter-box came to her. But she remembered that there was no letter-box. Then, such a course might be dangerous.

She looked gratefully towards the beam of light from the cab lamps. The solitude was getting on her nerves. Yes, she determined, she would write a note, and put it under the door. She need not sign it.

With that determination, she returned to where the taxi-man waited.

"Find it all right, miss?"

"Yes, but there's no one at home. I want to write a note and I should like you to go and slip it under the door for me. It is so lonely there, it has made me feel quite nervous. I can mind the cab!"

The man smiled and touched his cap. Taxi-men are possessed of intuitions; and this one knew perfectly well that he had a good fare and one that would pay him well enough for his trouble.

"Certainly, miss, with pleasure."

"Have you a piece of paper and a pencil?"

The man tore a leaf from a notebook and handed Zoe a pencil. Using the book as a pad, she, by the light of the near-side lamp, wrote:

"Your meeting at The Cedars known to Mr. Alden. Don't go."

"It is such a tiny piece of paper," she said. "He—they may not see it."

"I believe I've got an envelope somewhere, miss. It's got the company's name and address printed on it, and it won't be extra clean, but——"

"Oh, thank you! If you could find it——"

It was found, and proved to be even more dirty than the man's words had indicated. Zoe enclosed the note, wetted a finger of her glove, and stuck down the lapel.

"Will you please put it under the door?"

"Yes, miss. Shan't be a minute."

He was absent but a few moments.

"Back to Charing Cross Station," directed Zoe, and got into the cab again.

She had done her best. But, throughout the whole of the journey to the Strand, her mind was occupied with dire possibilities. It almost alarmed her, this too keen interest which she found herself taking in the fortunes of Séverac Bablon.

At Charing Cross the taxi-man received a sovereign. It was more than double his fare. He knew, then, that his professional instincts had not misled him, but that he had been driving an American millionairess.

In the foyer of the Astoria, Mary Evershed was waiting, with Mrs. Wellington Lacey in stately attendance. Mary was simply radiant. She sprang forward to meet Zoe, both hands outsretched.

"Wherever have you been?" she cried.

"Picture show!" said Zoe, with composed mendacity, glancing at the aristocratic chaperon.

"I could not possibly wait until the morning," Mary ran on, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "I had to run along here straight from horrid, stuffy Downing Street to tell you. Dick has inherited a fortune."

"What!" said Zoe, and grasped both her friend's hands. "Inherited a fortune!"

"Well—not quite a fortune, perhaps—five thousand pounds."

And John Jacob Oppner's daughter, a real chum to the core, never even smiled. For she knew what five thousand pounds meant to these two, knew that it meant more than five hundred thousands meant to her; since it meant the difference between union and parting, between love and loss, meant that Sir Richard Haredale could now shake off the fetters that bound him, and look the world in the face.

"Oh, Mary," she said, and her pretty eyes were quite tearful. "How very, very glad I am! Isn't it just great! It sounds almost too good to be true! Come right upstairs and tell me all about it!"

In Zoe's cosy room the story was told, not a romantic one in its essentials, but romantic enough in its potential sequel. A remote aunt was the benefactress; and her death, news of which had been communicated to Sir Richard that evening, had enriched him by five thousand pounds and served to acquaint him, at its termination, with the existence of a relation whom he had never met and rarely heard of.

Mr. Oppner came in towards the close of the story, and offered dry congratulations in that singular voice which seemed to have been preserved, for generations, in sand.

"He ought to invest it," he said. "Runeks are a good thing."

"You see," explained Mary. "He hasn't actually got it yet, only the solicitor's letter. And he says he will be unable to believe in his good luck until the money is actually in the bank!"

"Never let money lie idle," preached Oppner. "Banks fatten on such foolishness. Look at Hague. Ain't he fat?"

Though it must have been imperceptible to another, Zoe detected, in her father's manner, a suppressed excitement; and augured from it a belief that the capture of Séverac Bablon was imminent.

However, when Mary was gone, Mr. Oppner said nothing of the matter which, doubtless, occupied his mind, and Zoe felt too guilty to broach the subject. They retired at last, without having mentioned the name of Séverac Bablon.

Zoe found sleep to be impossible, and lay reading until long past one o'clock. But when the book dropped from her hands, she slept soundly and dreamlessly.

In the morning she scanned her mail anxiously. But there was nothing to show that her warning had been received. Could it be that Séverac Bablon had suddenly deserted the cottage for some reason, and that he would to-night walk, blindly, into the trap prepared for him?

She was anxious to see her father. And his manner, at breakfast, but dimly veiled an evident exultation. He ate very little, leaving her at the table, with one of his dry though not unkindly apologies, to go off with the stoical Mr. Alden.

If only she had a friend in whom she might confide, whose advice she might seek. Zoe laughed a little to think how excited she was on behalf of Séverac Bablon and how placidly she surveyed the possibility of her father's being relieved of a huge sum of money.

"That's the worst of knowing Pa's so rich!" she mused philosophically.

The morning dragged wearily on. Noon came. Nothing and nobody interested Zoe. She went to be measured for a gown and could not support the tedium of the operation.

"Send someone to the Astoria to-morrow," she said. "I just can't stand here any longer."

In the afternoon she called upon Sheila Vignoles, but everyone, from Lord Vignoles to the butler, irritated her. She came away with a headache. With the falling of dusk, her condition grew all but insupportable. Her father had been absent all day. She had met no one who would be likely to know anything about the night's expedition.

She sat looking out from her window at the Embankment, where lights were now glowing, point after point, through the deepening gloom.

It was as she stood there, vainly wondering what was going forward, that her father, his spare figure enveloped in a big motor coat, his cap pulled down upon his brow, walked along Richmond High Street beside Mr. Alden.

"By the time we get there," said the latter, rolling the inevitable cheroot from one corner of his mouth to the other, "it will be dark enough for our purpose. It's a warm night, and dry, which is fortunate, and I've marked a place right opposite the gate where we can lie all snug until we're wanted."

"Can you rely on Sullivan's men?"

"He's sending eight of the best. At his office, this afternoon I went over a plan of the place with them. It's impossible to march a troop up to the house to reconnoitre. They know exactly what they've got to do. It will be covered all around. A cat won't be able to come out of The Cedars, sir, without being noted!"

"Yep. And when we march up to the door?"

"Directly it's opened," explained Alden patiently, "I'll hold it open! Then, in go five Sullivan men, Martin and you. But there'll still be a man covering every egress from the house. If anybody tries to get out there'll be someone to hold him up and to whistle for more help if it's needed."

"Seems all right," said Oppner; "if we don't get loaded up with lead. Is this place much further? We seem to have been walkin' up this blame hill for hours."

"See that white milestone? Well, the first gate is fifty yards beyond, on the right."

"Have the crowd arrived yet?"

"Some of them. They're drafting up singly and in couples. There ought to be four on the river side of the place by now, and Martin waiting somewhere around the front."

"Four to come, yet?"

"Yep. Two for the other gate of the drive, and two for the lane that leads down to the river."

They plodded on in silence. Abreast of the milestone, but without stopping, Alden whistled softly.

He was answered from somewhere among the trees bordering the left of the road.

"That's Martin!" he said. "Come on, Mr. Oppner, through this gap in the fence."

Mr. Oppner crawled, in undignified silence, through the gap indicated.

"You see," explained Alden's voice out of the gloom, "farther along are open rails and dense bushes. That's where we're going to watch from. We'll see every soul that comes up."

"You're stone sure it's to-night they arranged?"

Patiently, Alden replied: "Stone sure."

"Because," drawled Oppner, stumbling along in the darkness, "this is not in my line."

"Sss!" came from close at hand.

Mr. Oppner started.

"That you, Martin?" from Alden.

"Yes; no one has gone in yet. But a ground floor room is lighted up, and also the conservatory."

"Right."

There was a momentary faint gleam of light. Mr. Alden was consulting his electrically-lighted watch.

"Time they were all posted," he said. "Martin, do the rounds. Hustle!"

Martin was heard slipping away through the bushes. Then came silence. Oppner and Alden were now at a point directly opposite a gate, and in full view of the house. Many of the windows were illuminated.

"Does the lawn slope down to the towpath?" came Oppner's voice.

"Sure. There are men on the towpath."

Silence fell once more. From somewhere down the road, in the direction of Richmond, was wafted a faint tinkling sound. Oppner heard Alden moving.

"I'll have to leave you for a minute," said the detective. "Don't be scared if Martin comes back."

Without waiting for a reply, Alden departed. Mr. Oppner heard him brushing against the bushes in passing. Crouching there uncomfortably, and looking out across the road to the gateway of The Cedars, Oppner saw a singular thing, a thing that made him wonder.

He saw Alden run swiftly across from the gap in the fence by which they had entered their hiding-place, to the gate opposite. He saw him run in. Then he disappeared. Whilst Oppner was thrashing his brains for a solution to this man[oe]uvre, a faint rattling sound drew his gaze down the hill.

Someone was approaching on a bicycle!

Almost holding his breath, he watched. Nearer came the rider, and nearer. Immediately before the gate of The Cedars he dismounted. He was a telegraph messenger.

At that moment Alden came strolling out, smoking his cigar and pulling on a pair of gloves.

"Hullo, boy!" he said; his voice was clearly audible to the listening Oppner. "Got a wire for me? I've been expecting it all the evening."

The boy opened his wallet, but with some hesitation.

"Dr. Phillips," continued Alden, "that right?"

The boy hesitated no longer.

"Phillips, yes, sir," he said, and handed the telegram to Alden.

With a nonchalant air which excited Mr. Oppner's admiration, Alden walked to a lamp some little distance away, tore open the yellow envelope, and read the message.

"All right, boy," he said. "No reply. Here, catch!"

He tossed the boy a coin, and with a touch of genius which showed him to be a really great detective, halted a moment, scratched his chin, and as the boy again mounted his bicycle, re-entered the gate of The Cedars.

"That's real cute!" murmured Oppner.

The boy having ridden off, Alden slipped warily out on to the road, ran across, and was lost to view. Presently a rustling in the bushes told of his return to Oppner's side.

"It's from Sheard," whispered the detective. "Our man must have written him further particulars, same as he said he'd do. It just reads: 'Detained. S.' But it was handed in at Fleet Street, and I haven't any doubt who sent it."

"He's smart, is Sheard," said Mr. Oppner. "He smelled trouble, or maybe he got wise to us——"

"Sss!"

"That you, Martin?"—from Alden.

"All right. Everybody seems to be posted. They're all finely out of sight, too."

"Good. The newspaper man isn't coming. See me get the wire?"

"Yes. I wonder if the rest will come."

"Hope so. I don't want to have to open the ball, because until some visitors have gone in we haven't got any real evidence that Séverac Bablon is there himself."

"Quiet," said Martin.

A measured tread proclaimed itself, drew nearer, and a policeman passed their hiding-place. When the regular footsteps had died away again:

"If he knew who's leased The Cedars," murmured Alden, "he'd be a sergeant sooner than he expects."

Which remark was the last contributed by any of the party for some considerable time. Alden's description of the road before The Cedars as a lonely one was fully justified. From the time of Martin's return until that when the big car drove up and turned into the drive, not a solitary pedestrian passed their hiding-place.

A laggard moon sailed out from a cloud-bank and painted the road white as far as the eye could follow it. Then came a breeze from the river, to sing drearily through the trees. In the intervals, when the breeze was still, its absence seemed in some way, to stimulate the watchers' power of hearing, so that they could detect vague sounds which proceeded from the river. The creak of oars told of a late rower on the stream—a voice was wafted up to them, to be drowned in the sighing of the leaves set swaying by the new breeze.

Then came the car.

The whirr of the motor announced its coming from afar off; but, so swiftly did it travel, that it was upon them a moment later. As it swung around and on to the drive of The Cedars its number showed clearly.

"3509," said Martin. "That's Mr. Antony Elschild!"

"Gee!" said Oppner, and his sandy voice shook somewhat, perhaps owing to the chill of the breeze. "This is getting real exciting!"

The car was delayed some little time before the door of the house, then driven around, and out at the further gate of the drive. It returned by the way it had come, racing down the hill at something considerably exceeding the legal speed. The thud-thud-thud of the motor died away, and became inaudible.

"I'm glad the police aren't with us, and yet sorry," said Oppner. "This is a whole-hog conspiracy properly. No wonder he was so hard to catch; look at the class of people he's got in with him! Think of Elschild! Gee! There's goin' to be a scene in a minute."

"For the present," said Alden, "we'll make no move; we'll just sit tight. There's maybe a lot to arrive yet."

Just before the breeze came creeping up from the river again, thud-thud-thud was borne to their ears. Another car was approaching.

THE LAMP AND THE MASK

"10761," said Alden. "I wonder whose car that is."

None of the watchful trio had any idea. But whomever was within it, the second car performed exactly the same man[oe]uvres as the first, and, a few moments after its appearance, was lost to sight and hearing once more.

But a matter of seconds later, came the familiar thud-thud-thud; and a third car plunged up the hill and went swinging around the drive. Again, no one of the three was able to recognise the number. Out by the further gate of the drive it passed, turned, and flashed by them in the darkness, to go leaping down the slope.

"Three," said Alden. "I wonder if there's any more."

His tone was thoughtful.

"Say," began Mr. Oppner, "we'd better get on with it now, because——"

"I know," Alden interrupted, "there may be only one more to come? You're thinking that, after all those expected have arrived, there'll be trouble in getting the door to open?"

"I was thinking that, too," said Martin. "Maybe they're all arrived as it is; but we stand a still worse chance if we wait."

"Come on," said Mr. Oppner, with a rising excitement evident in his voice. "We know there's one big fish in the net, anyway!"

Thud-thud-thud!

"There's another car coming," cried Alden. "Hurry up, Mr. Oppner! This way. Mind your head through this broken part. We'll be on the steps as the car comes around the drive!"

They crept through the gap below and ran across the road, Oppner as actively as either of his companions. Already, the white beam of the headlight was cutting-the gloom, below, where the road was heavily bordered with trees.

"Just in time!"

Past the gate they ran, and pattered on to the drive. Behind them, a big car was just spinning past the gate. As it came leaping along the drive Alden ran up the four stone steps to the door and jammed his thumb hard against the bell button.

At the same moment, Martin whistled shrilly, three times.

Whereupon affairs began to move in meteoric fashion.

Several people came bundling out of the car. From the gloom all about it there sounded the scamper of hurrying feet.

The door was thrown open, and a blaze of light swept the steps.

Alden leapt over the threshold, pistol in hand, yelling at the same time:

"Follow me, boys!"

Like the swoop of heated play to a goal burst a human wave upon the steps. Oppner and Martin were swept irresistibly upward and inward. They were surrounded, penned in. Then:

"Break away, you goldarned idiot!" rose Alden's angry voice ahead.

The lights went out. The door slammed.

"Alden!" cried Mr. Oppner. "Alden!"

Someone pinioned him from behind.

"There's a mistake, you blamed ass!" he screamed. "I ain't one of 'em! Alden! Martin!"

A hand was pressed firmly over his mouth, and with veins swelling up and eyes starting from his head in impotent fury, Mr. Oppner was hustled forward through the darkness.

Around him a number of people seemed to be moving, and when he found his feet upon stairs, several unseen hands were outstretched to thrust him upward. The darkness was impenetrable.

Apparently the stair was uncarpeted, as likewise was the corridor along which he presently found himself proceeding. The echo of many footsteps rang through the house. It sounded shell-like, empty. Then it seemed to him that not so many were about him. He felt his revolver slide from his hip-pocket. He was pushed gently forward, and a door closed behind him. The sound of footsteps died away with that of whispering voices.

Came a sudden angry roar, muffled, distant, he thought in the voice of Alden. It was stifled, cut off ere it had come to full crescendo, in a very significant manner. Silence, then, fell about him, the chill silence of an empty house.

Cautiously he turned and felt for the door, which he knew to be close behind him. He was obsessed by a childish, though not unnatural, fear of falling through some trap.

He touched the door-knob, turned it. As he had anticipated, the door was locked. He wondered if there were any windows to this strangely dark apartment. With his fingers touching the wall, he crept slowly forward, halting at every other step to listen; but the night gave up no sound.

The tenth pace brought him to a corner. He turned off at right angles, still pursuing the wall, and came upon shutters, closely barred. He pressed on, came to another corner; proceeded, another; and finally touched the door-knob again.

This was a square room, apparently, and unfurnished. But what might not yawn for him in the middle of the floor? He remembered that the river ran at the end of the garden.

Pressing his ear to the door, he listened intently.

Without, absolutely nothing stirred. He drew a quick, sibilant breath, and turned, planting his back against the door and clenching his fists.

Suddenly it had been borne in upon his mind that something, someone, was in the room with him!

Vainly he sought to peer through the darkness. His throat was parched.

A dim glow was born in the heart of the gloom. Scarce able to draw breath, fearing what he might see, yet more greatly fearing to look away, even for an instant, Mr. Oppner stared and stared. His eyes ached.

Brighter became the glow, and proclaimed itself a ball of light. It illuminated the face that was but a few inches removed from it. In the midst of that absolute darkness the effect was indescribably weird. Nothing for some moments was visible but just that ball of light and the dark face with the piercing eyes gleaming out from slits in a silk mask.

Then the ball became fully illuminated, and Oppner saw that it was some unfamiliar kind of lamp, and that it rested in a sort of metal tripod upon a plain deal table, otherwise absolutely bare.

Save for this table, the lamp, and a chair, the room was entirely innocent of furniture. Upon the chair, with his elbows resting on the table, sat a man in evening dress. He was very dark, very well groomed, and seemingly very handsome; but the black silk half-mask effectually disguised him. His eyes were arresting. Mr. Oppner did not move, and he could not look away.

For he knew that he stood in the presence of Séverac Bablon.

The latter pushed something across the table in Oppner's direction.

"Your cheque-book," he said, "and a fountain pen."

Mr. Oppner gulped; did not stir, did not speak. Séverac Bablon's voice was vaguely familiar to him.

"You are the second richest man in the United States," he continued, "and the first in parsimony. I shall mulct you in one hundred thousand pounds!"

"You'll never get it!" rasped Oppner.

"No? Well let us weigh the possibilities, one against the other. There have been protests, from rival journals, against the Gleaner's acceptance of foreign money for British national purposes. This I had anticipated, but such donations have had the effect of stimulating the British public. If the cheques already received, and your own, which you are about to draw, are not directly devoted to the purpose for which they are intended, I can guarantee that you shall not be humiliated by their return!"

"Ah!" sighed Oppner.

"The Gleaner newspaper has made all arrangements with an important English firm to construct several air vessels. The materials and the workmanship will be British throughout, and the vessels will be placed at the disposal of the authorities. The source of the Gleaner's fund thus becomes immaterial. But, in recognition of the subscribers, the vessels will be named 'Oppner I.,' 'Oppner II.,' 'Hague I.,' etc."

"Yep?"

"At some future time we may understand one another better, Mr. Oppner. For the present I shall make no overtures. I have no desire unduly to mystify you, however. The men whom Mr. Martin of Pinkerton's, found surrounding this house were not the men from Sullivan's Agency, but friends of my own. Sullivans were informed at the last moment that the raid had been abandoned. The car, again, which you observed, is my own. I caused it to be driven to and fro between here and Richmond Bridge for your especial amusement, altering the number on each occasion. Finally, any outcry you may care to raise will pass unnoticed, as The Cedars has been leased for the purpose of a private establishment for the care of mental cases."

"You're holding me to ransom?"

"In a sense. But you would not remain here. I should remove you to a safer place. My car is waiting."

"You can't hold me for ever." Mr. Oppner was gathering courage. This interview was so very businesslike, so dissimilar from the methods of American brigandage, that his keen, commercial instincts were coming to the surface. "Any time I get out I can tell the truth and demand my money back."

"It is so. But on the day that you act in that manner, within an hour from the time, your New York mansion will be burned to a shell, without loss of life, but with destruction of property considerably exceeding in value the amount of your donation to the Gleaner fund. I may add that I shall continue to force your expenditures in this way, Mr. Oppner, until such time as I bring you to see the falsity of your views. On that day we shall become friends."

"Ah!"

"You may wonder why I have gone to the trouble to make a captive of you, here, when by means of such a menace alone I might have achieved my object; I reply that you possess that stubborn type of disposition which only succumbs to force majeure. Your letter to the Gleaner explaining your views respecting the Dominion, and proposing that an air-vessel be christened 'The Canada,' is here, typed; you have only to sign it. The future, immediate, and distant is entirely in your own hands, Mr. Oppner. You will remain my guest until I have your cheque and your signature to this letter. You will always be open to sudden demands upon your capital, from me, so long as you continue, by your wrongful employment of the power of wealth, to blacken the Jewish name. For it is because you are a Jew that I require these things of you."

THE DAMASCUS CURTAIN

The British public poured contributions into the air-fleet fund with a lavishness that has never been equalled in history. For, after the stupendous sums, each one a big fortune in itself, which the Jewish financiers had subscribed, every man who called himself a Britisher (and who thought that Britain really needed airships) came forward with his dole.

There was a special service held at the Great Synagogue in Aldgate, and Juda was exalted in public estimation to a dizzy pinnacle.

One morning, whilst the enthusiasm was at its height, Mr. Oppner rose from the breakfast table upon hearing the 'phone bell ring.

"Zoe," he said, "if that's a reporter, tell him I'm ill in bed."

He shuffled from the room. Since the night of the abortive raid upon The Cedars he had showed a marked aversion from the society of newspaper men. Regarding the facts of his donation to the fund he had vouchsafed no word to Zoe. Closely had the story of his doings at Richmond been hushed up; as closely as a bottomless purse can achieve such silencing, but, nevertheless, Zoe knew the truth.

Sheard was shown in.

"Excuse me," he said hastily, "but I wanted to ask Mr. Oppner if there is anything in this article"—he held out a proof slip—"that he would like altered. It's for the Magazine of Empire. They're having full-page photographs of all the Aero Millionaires, that's what they call them now!"

"Can you leave it?" asked Zoe. "He is dressing—and not in a very good temper."

"Right!" said Sheard promptly, and laid the slip on the table. "'Phone me if there is anything to come out. Good-bye."

Zoe was reading the proof when her father came in again.

"Newspaper men been here?" he drawled. "Thought so. What a poor old addle-pated martyr I am."

"Listen," began Zoe, "this is an article all about you! It quotes Dr. Herman Hertz, that is to say, it represents you as quoting him! It says:—

"'The true Jew is an integral part of the life and spiritual endeavour of every nation where Providence has allotted his home. And as for the Jews of this Empire, which is earth's nearest realisation hitherto of justice coupled with humanity, finely has a noble Anglo-Jewish soldier, Colonel Goldschmidt, expressed it: "Loyalty to the flag for which the sun once stood still can only deepen our devotion to the flag on which the sun never sets."' Is that all right?"

"H'm!" said Oppner. "Have Rohscheimer and Jesson seen this article?"

"Don't know!" answered Zoe.

"Because," explained Oppner, "they've showed their blame devotion to the flag on which the sun don't set, same as me, and if they can stand it, my hide's as tough as theirs, I reckon."

It was whilst Mr. Oppner was thus expressing himself that Sheard, who, having left the proof at the Astoria, had raced back to the club to keep an appointment, quitted the club again (his man had disappointed him), and walked down the court to Fleet Street.

Mr. Aloys. X. Alden, arrayed in his capacious tweed suit, a Stetson felt hat, and a pair of brogues with eloquent Broadway welts, liquidated the business that had detained him in the "Cheshire Cheese" and drifted idly in the same direction.

A taxi-driver questioned Sheard with his eyebrows, but the pressman, after a moment's hesitancy, shook his head, and, suddenly running out into the stream of traffic, swung himself on a westward bound bus. Pausing in the act of lighting a Havana cigarette, Alden hailed the disappointed taxi-driver and gave him rapid instructions. The broad-brimmed Stetson disappeared within the cab, and the cab darted off in the wake of the westward bound bus.

Such was the price that Mr. Thomas Sheard must pay for the reputation won by his inspired articles upon Séverac Bablon. For what he had learnt of him during their brief association had enabled that clever journalist to invest his copy with an atmosphere of "exclusiveness" 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:

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 Séverac 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 Séverac 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 Séverac 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.

Séverac 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 Séverac 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 super-audacious man who now had entrusted to him the secret of his residence.

Hastily descending from the bus, he walked quickly forward to the nearest tobacconist's and turned in the entrance to note if the man who might be in the taxi would betray his presence.

He did.

The Stetson appeared from the window, and a pair of keen grey eyes fixed themselves upon the door wherein Sheard was lurking.

A rapid calculation showed the pressman where lay his best chance. Darting across the road, he dived, rabbit-like, into the burrow of the Tube, got his ticket smartly, and ran to the stairway. With his head on a level with the floor of the booking-offices he paused.

An instant later the canoe-shaped brogues came clattering down from above. The American took in the people in the hall with one comprehensive glance, got a ticket without a moment's delay, and jumped into a lift that was about to descend.

Two minutes afterwards Sheard was in a cab bound for the house of Séverac Bablon. The New Journalism is an exciting vocation.

He discharged the cabman at the corner of Finchley Road, and walked along to No. 70A.

Opening the monastic looking gate, he passed around a trim lawn and stood in the porch of one of those small and picturesque houses which survive in some parts of red-brick London.

A man who wore conventional black, but who looked like an Ababdeh Arab, opened the door before he had time to ring. He confirmed Sheard's guess at his Eastern nationality by the manner of his silent salutation. Without a word of inquiry he conducted the visitor to a small room on the left of the hall and retired in the same noiseless fashion.

The journalist had anticipated a curious taste in decoration, and he was not disappointed. For this apartment could not well be termed a room; it was a mere cell.

The floor was composed of blocks—or perhaps only faced with layers of red granite; the walls showed a surface of smooth plaster. An unglazed window which opened on a garden afforded ample light, and, presumably for illumination at night, an odd-looking antique lamp stood in a niche. A littered table, black with great age and heavily carved, and a chair to match, stood upon a rough fibre mat. There was no fireplace. The only luxurious touch in the strange place was afforded by a richly Damascened curtain, draped before a recess at the farther end.

From the table arose Séverac Bablon, wearing a novel garment strangely like a bernouse.

"My dear Sheard," he said warmly and familiarly, "I am really delighted to see you again."

Sheard shook his hand heartily. Séverac Bablon was as irresistible as ever.

"Take the arm-chair," he continued, "and try to overlook the peculiarities of my study. Believe me, they are not intended for mere effect. Every item of my arrangements has its peculiar note of inspiration, I assure you."

Sheard turned, and found that a deep-seated, heavily-cushioned chair, also antique, and which he had overlooked, stood close behind him. An odd perfume hung in the air.

"Ah," said Séverac Bablon, in his softly musical voice, "you have detected my vice."

He passed an ebony box to his visitor, containing cigarettes of a dark yellow colour. Sheard lighted one, and discovered it possessed a peculiar aromatic flavour, which he found very fascinating. Séverac Bablon watched him with a quizzical smile upon his wonderfully handsome face.

"I am afraid there is opium in them," he said.

Sheard started.

"Do not fear," laughed the other. "You cannot develop the vice, for these cigarettes are unobtainable in London. Their history serves to disprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced from Mexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the East generations earlier."

And so, with the mere melody of his voice, he re-established his sovereignty over Sheard's mind. His extraordinary knowledge of extraordinary matters occasioned the pressman's constant amazement. From the preparations made for the reception of the Queen of Sheba at Solomon's court in 980 B.C. he passed to the internal organisation of the Criminal Investigation Department.

"I should mention," said Sheard at this point, "that an attempt was made to follow me here."

Séverac Bablon waved a long white hand carelessly.

"Never mind," he replied soothingly. "It is annoying for you, but I give you my word that you shall not be compromised by me—come, luncheon is waiting. I will show you the only three men in Europe and America who might associate the bandit, the incendiary, with him who calls himself Séverac Bablon."

He stood up and gazed abstractedly in the direction of the garden. In silence he stood looking, not at the garden, but beyond it, into some vaster garden of his fancy. Sheard studied him with earnest curiosity.

"Will you never tell me," he began abruptly, "who you are really, what is the source of your influence, and what is your aim in all this wild business?"

Séverac Bablon turned and regarded him fixedly.

"I will," he said, "when the day comes—if ever it does come." A shadow crept over his mobile features.

"I am a dreamer, Sheard," he continued, "and perhaps a trifle mad. I am trying to wield a weapon that my fathers were content to let rust in its scabbard. For the source of the influence you speak of—its emblem lies there."

He pointed a long, thin finger to the recess veiled with its heavy Damascus curtain.

"May I see it?"

The quizzical smile returned to the fine face.

"Oh, thou of the copy-hunting soul," exclaimed Séverac Bablon. "A day may come. But it is not to-day."

He seized Sheard by the arm and led him out into the hall.

"Look at these three portraits," he directed. "The three great practical investigators of the world. Mr. Brinsley Monro, of Dearborn Street, Chicago; Mr. Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane; and last, but greatest, M. Victor Lemage, of Paris."

"Is Duquesne acting under his instructions?"

"M. Lemage took charge of the case this morning."

Sheard looked hard at Séverac Bablon. Victor Lemage, inventor of the anthroposcopic system of identification, the greatest living authority upon criminology, was a man to be feared.

Séverac Bablon smiled, clapped both hands upon his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.

"It is the lighter side of my strange warfare," he said. "I revel in it, Sheard. It refreshes me for more serious things. This evening you must arrange to meet me for a few moments. I shall have a 'scoop' to offer you for the Gleaner. Do not fail me. It will leave you ample time to get on to Downing Street afterwards. You see, I knew you were going to Downing Street to-night! Am I not a magician? I shall wire you. If, when you ring at the door of the house to which you will be directed, no one replies, go away at once. I will then communicate the news later. And now—lunch."

A WHITE ORCHID

Whoever could have taken a peep into a certain bare-looking room at Scotland Yard some three hours after Sheard had left Finchley Road must have been drawn to the conclusion that the net was closing more tightly about Séverac Bablon than he supposed.

Behind a large, bare table, upon which were some sheets of foolscap, a metal inkpot, and pens, sat Chief Inspector Sheffield. On three uncomfortable-looking chairs were disposed Detective Sergeant Harborne, he of the Stetson and brogues, and M. Duquesne, of Paris. Stetson and brogues, as became a non-official, observed much outward deference towards the Chief Inspector in whose room he found himself.

"We may take it, then," said Sheffield, with a keen glance of his shrewd, kindly eyes towards the American and the celebrated little Frenchman, "that Bablon, when he isn't made up, is a man so extremely handsome and of such marked personality that he'd be spotted anywhere. We have some reason to believe that he's a Jew. The head of the greatest Jewish house in Europe has declined to deny, according to M. Duquesne, that he knows who he is, and"—consulting a sheet of foolscap—"Mr. Alden, here, from New York, volunteers the information that H. T. Sheard, of the Gleaner, went to see Bablon this morning. We are aware, from information by Sir Leopold Jesson, that this newspaper man is acquainted with B. But we can't act on it. We understand that Bablon has a house in or near to London. None of us"—looking hard at Alden—"have any idea of the locality. There are two rewards privately offered, totalling £3,000—which is of more interest to Mr. Alden than to the rest of us—and M. Duquesne is advised this morning that his Chief is coming over at once. Now, we're all as wise as one another"—with a second hard look at his French confrère and Alden—"so we can all set about the job again in our own ways."

After this interesting conference, whereof each member had but sought to pump the others, M. Duquesne, entering Whitehall, almost ran into a tall man, wearing a most unusual and conspicuous caped overcoat, silk lined; whose haughty, downward glance revealed his possession of very large, dark eyes; whose face was so handsome that the little Frenchman caught his breath; whose carriage was that of a monarch or of one of the musketeers of Louis XIII.

With the ease of long practice, M. Duquesne formed an unseen escort for this distinguished stranger.

Arriving at Charing Cross, the latter, without hesitation, entered the telegraph office. M. Duquesne also recollected an important matter that called for a telegram. In quest of a better pen he leaned over to the compartment occupied by the handsome man, but was unable to get so much as a glimpse of what he was writing. Having handed in his message in such a manner that the ingenious Frenchman was foiled again, he strode out, the observed of everyone in the place, but particularly of M. Duquesne.

To the latter's unbounded astonishment, at the door he turned and raised his hat to him ironically.

Familiar with the characteristic bravado of French criminals, that decided the detective's next move. He stepped quickly back to the counter as the polite stranger disappeared.

"I am Duquesne of Paris," he said in his fluent English to the clerk who had taken the message, and showed his card. "On official business I wish to inspect the last telegram which you received."

The clerk shook his head.

"Can't be done. Only for Scotland Yard."

Duquesne was a man of action. He wasted not a precious moment in feckless argument. It was hard that he should have to share this treasure with another. But in seven minutes he was at New Scotland Yard, and in fifteen he was back again to his great good fortune, with Inspector Sheffield.

The matter was adjusted. In the notebooks of Messrs Duquesne and Sheffield the following was written:

"Sheard, Gleaner, Tudor Street. Laurel Cottage, Dulwich Village, eight to-night."

Returning to the Astoria to make arrangements for the evening's expedition, Duquesne upon entering his room, found there a large-boned man, with a great, sparsely-covered skull, and a thin, untidy beard. He sat writing by the window, and, at the other's entrance, cast a slow glance from heavy-lidded eyes across his shoulder.

M. Duquesne bowed profoundly, hat in hand.

It was the great Lemage.

There were overwhelming forces about to take the field. France, England and the United States were combining against Séverac Bablon. It seemed that at Laurel Cottage he was like to meet his Waterloo.

At twenty-five minutes to seven that evening a smart plain-clothes constable reported in Chief Inspector Sheffield's room.

"Well, Dawson?" said the inspector, looking up from his writing.

"Laurel Cottage, Dulwich, was let by the Old College authorities, sir, to a Mr. Sanrack a month ago."

"What is he like, this Mr. Sanrack?"

"A tall, dark gentleman. Very handsome. Looks like an actor."

"Sanrack—Séverac," mused Sheffield. "Daring! All right, Dawson, you can go. You know where to wait."

Fifteen minutes later arrived M. Duquesne. He had been carpeted by his chief for invoking the aid of the London police in the matter of the telegram.

"Five methods occur to me instantly, stupid pig," the great Lemage had said, "whereby you might have learnt its contents alone!"

Heavy with a sense of his own dull powers of invention—for he found himself unable to conceive one, much less five such schemes—M. Duquesne came into the inspector's room.

"Does your chief join us to-night?" inquired Sheffield, on learning that the famous investigator was in London.

"He may do so, m'sieur; but his plans are uncertain."

Almost immediately afterwards they were joined by Harborne, and all three, entering one of the taxi-cabs that always are in waiting in the Yard, set out for Dulwich Village.

The night was very dark, with ample promise of early rain, and as the cab ran past Westminster Abbey a car ahead swung sharply around Sanctuary Corner. Harborne, whose business it was to know all about smart society, reported:

"Old Oppner's big Panhard in front. Going our way—Embankment is 'up.' I wonder what his Agency men are driving at? Alden's got something up his sleeve, I'll swear."

"I'd like a peep inside that car," said Sheffield.

Harborne took up the speaking-tube as the cab, in turn, rounded into Great Smith Street.

"Switch off this inside light," he called to the driver, "and get up as close alongside that Panhard ahead as you dare. She's not moving fast. Stick there till I tell you to drop back."

The man nodded, and immediately the gear snatched the cab ahead with a violent jerk. At a high speed they leapt forward upon the narrow road, swung out to the off-side to avoid a bus, and closed up to the brilliantly-lighted car.

It was occupied by two women in picturesque evening toilettes. One of them was a frizzy haired soubrette and the other a blonde. Both were conspicuously pretty. The fair girl wore a snow white orchid, splashed with deepest crimson, pinned at her breast. Her companion, who lounged in the near corner, her cloak negligently cast about her and one rounded shoulder against the window, was reading a letter; and Harborne, who found himself not a foot removed from her, was trying vainly to focus his gaze upon the writing when the fair girl looked up and started to find the cab so close. The light of a sudden suspicion leapt into her eyes as, obedient to the detective's order, the taxi-driver slowed down and permitted the car to pass. Almost immediately the big Panhard leapt to renewed speed, and quickly disappeared ahead.

Harborne turned to Inspector Sheffield.

"That was Miss Zoe Oppner, the old man's daughter."

"I know," said Sheffield sharply. "Read any of the letter?"

"No," admitted Harborne; "we were bumping too much. But there's a political affair on to-night in Downing Street. I should guess she's going to be there."

"Why? Who was the fair girl?"

"Lady Mary Evershed," answered Harborne. "It's her father's 'do' to-night. We want to keep an eye on Miss Oppner, after the Astoria Hotel business. Wish we had a list of guests."

"If Séverac Bablon is down," replied Sheffield; grimly, "I don't think she'll have the pleasure of seeing him this evening. But where on earth is she off to now?"

"Give it up," said Harborne, philosophically.

"Oh, she of the golden hair and the white odontoglossum," sighed the little Frenchman, rolling up his eyes. "What a perfection!"

They became silent as the cab rapidly bore them across Vauxhall Bridge and through south-west to south-east London, finally to Dulwich Village, that tiny and dwindling oasis in the stucco desert of Suburbia.

Talking to an officer on point duty at a corner, distinguished by the presence of a pillar-box, was P.C. Dawson in mufti. He and the other constable saluted as the three detectives left the cab and joined them.

"Been here long, Dawson?" asked Sheffield.

"No, sir. Just arrived."

"You and I will walk along on the far side from this Laurel Cottage," arranged the inspector, "and M. Duquesne might like a glass of wine, Harborne, until I've looked over the ground. Then we can distribute ourselves. We've got a full quarter of an hour."

It was arranged so, and Sheffield, guided by Dawson, proceeded to the end of the Village, turned to the left, past the College buildings, and found himself in a long, newly-cut road, with only a few unfinished houses. Towards the farther end a gloomy little cottage frowned upon the road. It looked deserted and lonely in its isolation amid marshy fields. In the background, upon a slight acclivity, a larger building might dimly be discerned. A clump of dismal poplars overhung the cottage on the west.

"It's been a gate lodge at some time, sir," explained Dawson. "You can see the old carriage sweep on the right. But the big house is to be pulled down, and they've let the lodge, temporarily, as a separate residence. There's no upstairs, only one door and very few windows. We can absolutely surround it!"

"H'm! Unpleasant looking place," muttered Sheffield, as the two walked by on the opposite side. "No lights. When we've passed this next tree, slip along and tuck yourself away under that fence on the left. Don't attempt any arrest until our man's well inside. Then, when you hear the whistle, close in on the door. I'll get back now."

Ten minutes later, though Laurel Cottage presented its usual sad and lonely aspect, it was efficiently surrounded by three detectives and a constable.

Sheffield's scientific dispositions were but just completed when a cursing taxi-man deposited Sheard half way up the road, having declined resolutely to bump over the ruts any further. Dismissing the man, the keenest copy-hunter in Fleet Street walked alone to the Cottage, all unaware that he did so under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes. Finding a rusty bell-pull he rang three times. But none answered.

It was at the moment when he turned away that Mr. Alden and an Agency colleague, who—on this occasion successfully—had tracked him since he left the Gleaner office, turned the corner by the Village. Seeing him retracing his steps, they both darted up a plank into an unfinished house with the agility of true ferrets, and let him pass. As he re-entered the Village street one was at his heels. Mr. Alden strolled along to Laurel Cottage.

With but a moment's consideration, he, taking a rapid glance up and down the road, vaulted the low fence and disposed himself amongst the unkempt laurel bushes flanking the cottage on the west. The investing forces thus acquired a fifth member.

Then came the threatened rain.

Falling in a steady downpour, it sang its mournful song through poplar and shrub. Soon the grey tiled roof of the cottage poured its libation into spouting gutters, and every rut of the road became a miniature ditch. But, with dogged persistency, the five watchers stuck to their posts.

When Sheard had gone away again, Inspector Sheffield had found himself, temporarily, in a dilemma. It was something he had not foreseen. But, weighing the chances, he had come to the conclusion to give the others no signal, but to wait.

At seven minutes past eight, by Mr. Alden's electrically lighted timepiece, a car or a cab—it was impossible, at that distance, to determine which—dropped a passenger at the Village end of the road. A tall figure, completely enveloped in a huge, caped coat, and wearing a dripping silk hat, walked with a swinging stride towards the ambush—and entered the gate of the cottage.

M. Duquesne, who, from his damp post in a clump of rhododendrons on the left of the door had watched him approach, rubbed his wet hands delightedly. Without the peculiar coat that majestic walk was sufficient.

"It is he!" he muttered. "The Séverac!"

With a key which he must have held ready in his hand, the new-comer opened the door and entered the cottage. Acting upon a pre-arranged plan, the watchers closed in upon the four sides of the building, and Sheffield told himself triumphantly that he had shown sound generalship. With a grim nod of recognition to Alden, who appeared from the laurel thicket, he walked up to the door and rang smartly.

This had one notable result. A door banged inside.

Again he rang—and again.

Nothing stirred within. Only the steady drone of the falling rain broke the chilling silence.

Sheffield whistled shrilly.

At that signal M. Duquesne immediately broke the window which he was guarding, and stripping off his coat, he laid it over the jagged points of glass along the sashes and through the thickness of the cloth forced back the catch. Throwing up the glassless frame, he stepped into the dark room beyond.

To the crash which he had made, an answering crash had told him that Detective-sergeant Harborne had effected an entrance by the east window.

Cautiously he stepped forward in the darkness, a revolver in one hand; with the other he fumbled for the electric lamp in his breast pocket.

As his fingers closed upon it a slight noise behind him brought him right-about in a flash.

The figure of a man who was climbing in over the low ledge was silhouetted vaguely in the frame of the broken window.

"Ah!" hissed Duquesne. "Quick! speak! Who is that?"

"Ssh! my Duquesne!" came a thick voice. "Do you think, then, I can leave so beautiful a case to anyone?"

Duquesne turned the beam of the lantern on the speaker.

It was Victor Lemage.

Duquesne bowed, lantern in hand.

"Waste no moment," snapped Lemage. "Try that door!" pointing to the only one in the room.

As the other stepped forward to obey, the famous investigator made a comprehensive survey of the little kitchen, for such it was. Save for its few and simple appointments, it was quite empty.

"The door is locked."

"Ah, yes. I thought so."

"Hullo!" came Sheffield's voice through the window, "who's there, Duquesne?"

"It is M. Lemage. M'sieur, allow me to make known the great Scotland Yard Inspector Sheffield."

With a queer parody of politeness, Duquesne turned the light of his lantern alternately upon the face of each, as he mentioned his name.

Sheffield bowed awkwardly. For he knew that he stood in the presence of the undisputed head of his profession—the first detective in Europe.

"You have not left the front door unguarded, M'sieur the Inspector?" inquired Lemage sharply.

"No, Mr. Lemage," snapped Sheffield, "I have not. My man Dawson is there, with an Agency man, too."

"Then we surround completely the room in which he is," declared Lemage.

Such was the case, as a glance at the following plan will show.