"The Great Wireless Mystery" (continued 3)

Mr Richard Allen lived very quietly and respectably in his little white villa on the Corniche road. He was known everywhere along the Riviera from Hyères to Mentone. That he was a wireless amateur many people also knew. But of his real and very lucrative profession of blackmail nobody ever dreamed. Yet of the women who flock to the Riviera each year who dreams that the nice amiable, middle-aged man whom one meets at hotels or at the Casino, and who may offer to dance, is a blackmailer? Ah! How many hundreds of the fair sex have in these post-war days been misled and, bemuddled by liqueurs, fallen into the clever trap laid for them by such blackguards?

Blackmailers stand around the tapis-vert on the Riviera in dozens. Nobody suspects them. But their victims are many, and their failures few. And of the vampires of the Côte d’Azur, Allen was one of the most successful—allied as he was with Gordon Gray, who, when necessity arose, supplied the sinews of war.

Soon after half-past eight they were back in the private sitting-room at the hotel, and having locked the door, Allen set to work. Upon the table was a small dispatch-case, and from it he took a flat dry battery, such as is used in flash-lamps, and a pair of wireless telephone receivers. The battery and telephones being carefully attached to the wires, the man took one of the receivers and listened. The ticking of the clock in the adjoining room, hardly discernible to anyone even a few yards away, was now distinctly audible.

No word was exchanged between the pair, for they were unaware whether anyone was already in the room.

Suddenly Allen raised his finger and motioned to his companion to take the other receiver. This she did eagerly, when she heard the rustling of a newspaper, followed by a man’s deep cough. The old Moor was already there, awaiting the Englishman.

By means of the delicate microphone-button every sound was now magnified and conveyed from His Excellency’s sitting-room to the ears of the listeners. The clock had already struck nine when presently the door opened and two men entered, greeting the Moorish Minister in French. One, who spoke French very badly, was Barclay.

The conversation which ensued, believed by the three men to be in strictest secrecy, was highly interesting to the pair of listeners four rooms away. Little did they dream that behind that soft silk-covered settee hung the tiny transmitting-button, that little contrivance by which Allen had listened to private conversations many times before, conversations which had resulted in large sums being paid to him to ensure silence.

The man who had accompanied the Englishman, Barclay, appeared from their deliberations to be the Kaid Ahmed-el-Hafid, one of the most powerful officials at Fez, and their discussion concerned the granting of the concession to prospect for precious stones in the Wad Sus valley.

“And the name in which the concession is to be granted?” inquired His Excellency huskily in French.

“The name is Roderick Charles Homfray,” said Barclay. “I have it here written down. If your Excellency will have the document drawn up and sealed, my friend the Kaid will come over and meet me here or in Paris, or even in London.”

“In London,” the Kaid suggested. “I have business there next month.”

“And it is distinctly understood that if gems be found and a company formed that I get one-eighth share?” asked the wily old Minister.

“I have already assigned that to your Excellency,” replied Barclay. “I think you and the Kaid know me well enough to trust me.”

“Of course we do, Monsieur Barclay,” declared the Minister with a laugh. “Very well. It is fixed. I will, immediately on my return, grant the concession to this Monsieur—Monsieur Homfray, and hand it to the Kaid to bring to you.” Then, after a pause, the patriarchal old Moor added in his hoarse voice: “Now that we have arrived at terms I have something here which will greatly facilitate Monsieur Homfray’s search.”

“Have you?” cried Barclay eagerly. “What’s that?”

“When you sent me word in confidence some months ago about the ancient mines in the Wad Sus, I sent a trusty agent, one Ben Chaib Benuis, there to make secret inquiry. He is one of the Touareg—the brigands of the desert—and from his fellow-marauders he discovered the exact spot where the ancient workings are situated—a spot only known to those veiled nomads. They preserve the secret from the Arabs. Indeed, here I have not only a map giving the exact spot—roughly drawn though it is, yet giving the exact measurements and direction from the oasis of Raffi—but also one of the emeralds which my agent himself discovered. You see, it is still rough and uncut, yet is it not magnificent in size?”

Both men drew deep breaths. The listeners could hear their surprise as the old Minister exhibited to them proof of the continued existence of the gems at the spot marked upon the map.

“Now,” went on the old man, “I will give you this map, Monsieur Barclay, but I will keep the emerald to repay myself for the expenses of my agent—eh? Be extremely careful of the map, and take all precautions for its safety, I beg of you. I have brought it over with me rather than trust it to others, Monsieur Barclay.”

“I thank your Excellency. It shall not leave my possession until I hand it, together with the concession, to young Homfray—who, I may say, is enthusiastic, resourceful and daring—just the go-ahead young man we require for such a hazardous venture.”

“And you will form a company in London to work the mines—eh?” the Kaid remarked.

“That is our intention. We can find the money easier in London than in Paris, I think.”

“Yes, London,” urged His Excellency. “I would prefer London. But,” he added, “be careful of that map, Monsieur Barclay! It will be of greatest use to our young friend, whom I hope one day to see in Fez. I will then introduce him to Ben Chaib, who will obtain for him a safe conduct among the Touareg because they are always dangerous for strangers.”

“Even to ourselves,” laughed the Kaid, and then added: “I will be in London on the tenth of next month. But I will write to you, Monsieur Barclay, giving you notice of my arrival.”

A quarter of an hour later the three men went forth together, while Freda, opening the door stealthily, saw their figures disappearing down the corridor. The Kaid was a tall, spare man in European clothes, but the Moorish Minister of the Interior was wearing his turban and flowing white burnous which spread about him as he walked.

“Quick!” she whispered to her companion. “Slip in and get out the wires, while I detach them on this side.”

This he did, and, save the small hole through the wall, all traces of their ingenuity were swiftly removed.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Key to a Fortune.

“Here’s five pounds now—and fifteen more when you give it back to me, my dear little girl. Only be sure it’s the right one you take!”

“But I—I really can’t—I—”

“Don’t be a silly fool, Lily. I only want to play a practical joke on your master. I knew him a long time ago, and it will greatly surprise him. No harm will be done, I assure you. Surely you can trust me?”

The girl Lily, well and neatly dressed, was a parlour-maid, while the man, also quite decently dressed, was somewhat older. The pair were at the moment standing at the corner of the street near Richmond Station, and it was already nearly ten o’clock at night, at which hour the girl had to be indoors.

Three weeks before she had first met Mr Henry Elton. He had sat next to her in the cinema and had spoken to her. The result had been that he had taken her to tea on several evenings, and on her “day out,” which had been the previous Friday, he had taken her on a char-à-banc to Bognor. He was not at all bad-looking, a solicitor’s managing clerk, he told her, and she rather liked him for his quiet, subtle manner.

But what he had asked her to do had greatly surprised her. He had promised her twenty pounds if she would press her master’s little safe key into the tin matchbox filled with soft wax, and thus take an impression of it. Naturally she asked why. In reply he had explained that he and her master had, for years, been intimate friends, and that once in the club they had had a sharp discussion about safes and keys. Her master had declared that safe-makers made no two keys alike. And now he wanted to play a joke upon him and prove to him that they did.

They had been chatting it over all that evening. The plea was certainly a thin one, but to Lily Lawson in her frame of mind, and with a gentleman as her sweetheart, it sounded quite plausible.

“Of course, I rely upon you, Lily, never to give me away,” he laughed. “I want to win the bet, and I’ll give you half?”

“Of course I won’t,” she answered, as they still stood there, the clock striking ten. “But I really ought not to do it?”

“It isn’t difficult. You say that he often leaves his keys on his dressing-table, and you know the little one which unlocks the safe in the basement.”

“Yes. It’s quite a tiny key with the maker’s name along the barrel of it.”

“Then all you have to do is to press it well into the wax, and there’s fifteen pounds for you if you give the little box back to me to-morrow night. It’s so easy—and twenty pounds will certainly be of use to you, now that your poor mother is so ill.”

The girl wavered. The man saw it and cleverly put further pressure upon her, by suggesting that with the money she could send her mother away for a change.

“But is it really right?” she queried, raising her dark eyes to his.

“Of course it is. It’s only a joke, dear,” he laughed.

Again she was silent.

“Well,” she said at last. “I really must fly now.”

“And you’ll do it, won’t you?” he urged.

“Well, if it’s only a joke, yes. I’ll—I’ll try to do it.”

“At the usual place at nine to-morrow night—eh?”

“All right,” she replied, and hurried away, while the man lit a cigarette, well satisfied, and then turned into a bar to get a drink.

The man was the blackmailer Richard Allen.

During Andrew Barclay’s journey home Allen and his woman accomplice had made a daring attempt to possess themselves of the valuable plan which had been given him by His Excellency. Barclay had broken his journey for a day in Paris, and had gone to the Grand Hôtel. During his absence Allen had applied at the bureau for the key of the room—explaining that he was Mr Barclay’s secretary—and had been given it.

Instantly he went up and ransacked the Englishman’s bags. But to his chagrin and annoyance the plan was not there.

As a matter of fact Barclay had placed it in his pocket-book and carried it with him. Again, next day, as he disembarked from the Channel steamer at Folkestone, Freda stumbled against him and apologised, and while his attention was thus attracted Allen made an attempt to possess himself of his wallet. But in that he was unsuccessful.

Therefore the pair, annoyed at their failure, had watched him enter the train for Victoria and for the moment gave up any further attempt. Thus it was that the man had contrived to get on friendly terms with Barclay’s parlour-maid, who had told him that in the house her master had a safe built in the wall in the basement near the kitchen. In it the silver and other valuables were kept, together with a quantity of papers.

No doubt the precious map was held there in safety, and for that reason they were endeavouring to obtain a cast of the key.

It was after all a dangerous job, for the girl might very easily tell her master of the kind gentleman who had offered twenty pounds for the wherewithal to play a practical joke. And if so, then the police would no doubt be informed and watch would be kept.

With that in view, Freda was next night idling near the spot arranged, close to where one buys “Maids of Honour,” and though Allen was in the vicinity, he did not appear.

At last the girl came and waited leisurely at the corner, whereupon after a few moments Freda approached her and said pleasantly:

“You are waiting for Mr Elton, I believe?”

“Yes, I am,” replied the girl, much surprised. “He is sorry he can’t be here. He had to go to the north this afternoon. He’ll be back in a day or two. He gave me fifteen pounds to give to you for something. Have you got it?”

“Yes,” replied the girl. “Come along, madam, where it’s dark and I’ll give it to you.”

So they moved along together around a corner where they would not be observed, and in exchange for the three five-pound notes the girl handed the woman the little tin matchbox with the impression of a key in the wax.

“You’ll say nothing, of course,” said Freda. “You’ve promised Mr Elton to say nothing.”

“Of course I won’t say anything,” laughed the girl. “The fact is, I’ve had a row with the housekeeper and have given in my notice. I leave this day week.”

This news was to the woman very reassuring. “You’re quite certain you took the right key?” she asked.

“Quite. I looked at the maker’s name before I pressed it into the wax,” she answered. “But I’d like to see Mr Elton again before I leave Richmond.”

“He’ll be back in a couple of days, and then he will write to you. I’ll tell him. Good-night, and thanks.”

And the woman with the little box in her muff moved away well satisfied.

A quarter of an hour later she met Allen outside Richmond Station, and placing the little box in his hands, explained that the girl was leaving her place the following week.

“Excellent! We’ll delay our action until she’s gone. I suppose I’d better see her before she goes, so as to allay any suspicion.” Then, opening the box, his keen eye saw that the impression was undoubtedly one of a safe key.

Indeed, next morning, he took it to a man in Clerkenwell who for years had made a speciality of cutting keys and asking no questions, and by the following night the means of opening the safe at Underhill Road was in Allen’s hands.

The man who lived by the blackmailing of those whom he entrapped—mostly women, by the way—was nothing if not wary, as was shown by the fact that he had sent Freda to act as his messenger. If the girl had told the police the woman could have at once declared that she had never seen the girl before, though if the little box had been found upon her, explanation would have been somewhat difficult. But the gang of which the exquisite adventurer Gordon Gray was the alert head always acted with forethought and circumspection; the real criminal keeping out of the way and lying “doggo” proof was always rendered as difficult as possible.

Gray had gone over to Brussels, which accounted for Willowden being closed. He had a little piece of rather irritating business on hand there. Awkward inquiries by the police had led to the arrest of a man who had sent word in secret that if his wife were not paid two thousand pounds as hush-money, he would tell what he knew. And the wife being a low-class Belgian woman from Namur, Gray had gone over to see her and to appease her husband by paying the sum demanded.

Crooks are not always straight towards each other. Sometimes thieves fall out, and when in difficulties or peril they blackmail each other—often to the advantage of the police.

Roddy and Barclay had met, the latter having told his young friend of the arrangements he had made with His Excellency and the Kaid, and also shown him the map which had been given to him.

At sight of this the young fellow grew very excited.

“Why, it gives us the exact location of the workings,” he cried. “With this, a compass and measuring instruments I can discover the point straight away. The old man is no fool, evidently!”

“No, the Moors are a clever and cultivated race, my dear Roddy,” the elder man replied. “As soon as the Kaid brings over the necessary permits and the concession you can go ahead. I will keep the map in my safe till then, when I will hand all the documents over to you.”

This good news Roddy had told Elma one evening when they had met clandestinely—as they now so often met—at a spot not far from the lodge gates at Farncombe Towers.

“How jolly lucky!” the girl cried. “Now you’re only waiting for the proper permits to come. It’s really most good of Mr Barclay to help you. He must be an awfully nice man.”

“Yes, he’s a topper—one of the best,” Roddy declared. “Out in South America he did me a good turn, and I tried to repay it. So we became friends. He’s one of the few Englishmen who know the Moors and has their confidence. He’s a bachelor, and a great traveller, but just now he’s rented a furnished house in Richmond. He’s one of those rolling stones one meets all over the world.”

The young man waxed enthusiastic. He loved Elma with all his heart, yet he wondered if his affection were reciprocated. She had mentioned to him the close friendship which had sprung up between her father and Mr Rex Rutherford, and how he had dined at Park Lane. But at the moment he never dreamed that her grace and beauty had attracted her father’s newly-made friend.

As for Roddy’s father, he remained calm and reflective, as was his wont, visiting his parishioners, delivering his sermons on Sundays, and going the weary round of the village each day with a cheery face and kindly word for everybody. Nothing had been done concerning his property in Totnes as the woman Crisp had threatened. It was curious, he thought, and it was evident that the ultimatum he had given Gray had caused him to stay his hand.

Yet as he sat alone he often wondered why Gray and that serpent woman should have so suddenly descended upon him, and upon Roddy, to wreak a vengeance that, after all, seemed mysterious and quite without motive.

The hot blazing summer days were passing, when late one balmy breathless night—indeed it was two o’clock in the morning—a man dressed as a railway signalman, who had been on night duty, passed along Underhill Road, in Richmond, and halted near the pillar-box. Underhill Road was one of the quieter and more select thoroughfares of that picturesque suburb, for from the windows of the houses glorious views could be obtained across the sloping Terrace Gardens and the wide valley of the Thames towards Teddington and Kingston.

A constable had, with slow tread, passed along a few moments before, but the signalman, who wore rubber-soled black tennis shoes, had followed without noise.

The watcher, who was Dick Allen, saw the man in uniform turn the corner under the lamplight and disappear. Then slipping swiftly along to a good-sized detached house which stood back from the road in its small garden, he entered the gate and dived quickly down to the basement—which, by the way, he had already well surveyed in the daytime.

Before a window he halted, and turning upon it a small flash-lamp, inserted a knife into the sash and pressed back the latch in a manner that was certainly professional. Having lifted the sash he sprang inside and, guided by the particulars he had learnt from the maid Lily, he soon discovered the door of the safe, which was let into the wall in a stone passage leading from the kitchen to the coal-cellar.

He halted to listen. There was no sound. The little round zone of bright light fell upon the brass flap over the keyhole of the dark-green painted door of the safe, wherein reposed the secret of the rich emerald mine in the great Sahara Desert.

He took the bright little false key, which was already well oiled, and lifting the flap inserted it. It turned easily.

Then he turned the brass handle, which also yielded. He drew the heavy door towards him and the safe stood open! The little light revealed three steel drawers. The first which he opened in eager haste contained a number of little canvas bags, each sealed up. They contained specimens of ore from various mines in Peru and Ecuador. Each bore a tab with its contents described.

In the next were several pieces of valuable old silver, while the third contained papers—a quantity of documents secured by elastic bands.

These he turned over hurriedly, and yet with care so as not to allow the owner to suspect that they had been disturbed. For some time he searched, until suddenly he came upon an envelope bearing upon its flap the address of the Hôtel du Parc at Marseilles. It was not stuck down. He opened it—and there he found the precious map which showed the exact position of the ancient Wad Sus mine!

For a few seconds he held it in his hands in supreme delight. Then, taking from his pocket a blank piece of folded paper he put it into the envelope, and replacing it among the other documents which he arranged just as he had found them, he closed the safe and relocked it.

A second later he stole noiselessly out by the way he had come, the only evidence of his presence being the fact that the window was left unfastened, a fact which his friend Lily’s successor would, he felt sure, never notice.

But as, having slowly drawn down the window, he turned to ascend the steps a very strange and disconcerting incident occurred.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Master-Stroke.

Mr Richard Allen found himself, ere he was aware of it, in the strong grip of a burly police constable.

“And what ’ave you been up to ’ere—eh?” demanded the officer, who had gripped him tightly by the coat collar and arm.

“Nothing,” replied Allen. “I fancy you’ve made a mistake!”

“I fancy I ’aven’t,” was the constable’s reply. “You’ll ’ave to come to the station with me.”

“Well, do as you please,” said Allen with an air of nonchalance. “I’ve done nothing.”

“I’m not so sure about it. We’ll see what you’ve done when you’re safely in the cells.”

Cells! Mr Richard Allen had already had a taste of those—on more than one occasion—both in England and abroad. It was, after all, very humiliating to one of his high caste in crookdom to be arrested like a mere area sneak.

“I don’t see why I should be put to the inconvenience of going to the station,” the cosmopolitan remarked.

“Well, I do, mister, so there’s all the difference!” replied the other grimly, his eyes and ears on the alert to hail one of his comrades, a fact which the astute Mr Allen did not fail to realise. The situation was distinctly awkward, not to say alarming, for in his pocket he had the precious map.

Suddenly they were about to turn the corner into the main road when the prisoner, who had gone along quite quietly, even inertly, quickly swung round and snatched at the policeman’s whistle, breaking it from its chain and throwing it away.

It was done in a moment, and next second with a deft movement he tripped up his captor, and both fell heavily to the pavement. He had taken the constable unawares, before he could realise that he had a slippery customer to deal with. The constable, however, would not release his hold, with the result that they rolled struggling into the gutter, the policeman shouting for assistance.

A man’s voice answered in the distance, whereupon Allen’s right hand went to his jacket pocket, and then swiftly to the face of his captor, who almost instantly relaxed his hold as he fell into unconsciousness. The prisoner had held a small capsule in his captor’s face and smashed it in his fingers, thus releasing an asphyxiating gas of sufficient potency to render the constable insensible.

Quick as lightning Allen disengaged himself, and dragging the senseless man across the pavement into the front garden of a small house exactly opposite, closed the gate, picked up his hat, and then walked quietly on as though nothing had occurred.

As he turned the corner he came face to face with another constable who was hurrying up.

“Did you hear my mate shouting a moment ago, sir?” asked the man breathlessly.

“No,” replied Allen halting. “I heard no shouting. When?”

“A few moments ago. The shouts came from this direction. He was crying for help.”

“Well, I heard nothing,” declared Allen, still standing as the constable, proceeding, passed the gate behind which his colleague lay hidden.

Then Allen laughed softly to himself and set out on the high road which led to Kingston.

“A narrow shave!” he remarked to himself aloud. “I wonder what Barclay will say when they go to Underhill Road!”

Not until eight o’clock in the morning did a milkman going his round find the constable lying as though asleep in the little front garden. He tried to rouse him, but not being able to do so, called the nearest policeman who summoned the ambulance. At first the inspector thought the man intoxicated, but the divisional surgeon pronounced that he had been gassed, and it was several hours later, when in the hospital, that he managed to give an intelligible account of what had occurred.

About noon an inspector called upon Mr Barclay at Underhill Road, but he had gone out.

“Did you find any of your basement windows open when you got up this morning?” he asked the housekeeper, who replied in the negative. Then the new parlour-maid being called declared that she had fastened all the windows securely before retiring, and that they were all shut when she came down at seven o’clock.

The inspector went away, but in the evening he called, saw Mr Barclay, and told him how a man lurking against the kitchen window had been captured, and explained that he must be a well-known and desperate thief because of the subtle means he had in his possession to overcome his captors.

“My servants have told me about it. But as they say the windows were fastened the man could not have committed a burglary,” replied Mr Barclay. “The house was quite in order this morning.”

“But it is evident that the fellow, whoever he was, meant mischief, sir.”

“Probably. But he didn’t succeed, which is fortunate for me!” the other laughed.

“Well, sir, have you anything particularly valuable on the premises here? If so, we’ll have special watch kept,” the inspector said.

“Nothing beyond the ordinary. I’ve got a safe down below—a very good one because the man who had this house before me was a diamond dealer, with offices in the City, and he often kept some of his stock here. Come and look at it.”

Both men went below, and Mr Barclay showed the inspector the heavy steel door.

The inspector examined the keyhole, but there were no traces of the lock having been tampered with. On the contrary, all was in such complete order that Mr Barclay did not even open the safe.

“It’s rather a pity the fellow got away,” Mr Barclay remarked.

“It is, sir—a thousand pities. But according to the description given of him by Barnes—who is one of the sharpest men in our division—we believe it to be a man named Hamilton Layton, a well-known burglar who works alone, and who has been many times convicted. A constable in Sunderland was attacked by him last winter in an almost identical manner.”

The inspector made a thorough search of the basement premises, and again questioned the fair-haired parlour-maid who was Lily’s successor. She vowed that she had latched all the windows, though within herself she feared that she had overlooked the fact that one of the windows was unlatched in the morning. Yet what was the use of confessing it, she thought.

So there being no trace of any intruder, the inspector walked back to the station, while Mr Barclay smiled at the great hubbub, little dreaming that in place of that precious map there reposed in the envelope only a plain piece of paper.

That afternoon Dick Allen arrived at Willowden. Gray was away motoring in Scotland, where he had some little “business” of the usual shady character to attend to. Freda had gone to Hatfield, and it was an hour before she returned. During that hour Allen smoked and read in the pretty summerhouse at the end of the old-world garden, so full of climbing roses and gay borders.

Suddenly he heard her voice, and looking up from his paper saw her in a big hat and filmy lemon-coloured gown.

He waved to her, rose, and met her at the French window of the old-fashioned dining-room.

“Well?” she asked. “What luck, Dick? I worried a lot about you last night. I felt somehow that you’d had an accident and to-day—I don’t know how it was—I became filled with apprehension and had to go out. I’m much relieved to see you. What’s happened?”

“Nothing, my dear Freda,” laughed the good-looking scoundrel. “There was just a little contretemps—that’s all.”

“Have you got the map?”

“Sure,” he laughed.

“Ah! When you go out to get a thing you never fail to bring it home,” she said, with a smile. “You’re just like Gordon. You’ve both got the impudence of the very devil himself.”

“And so have you, Freda,” laughed her companion, as he stretched himself upon the sofa. “But the little reverse I had in the early hours of this morning was—well, I admit it—rather disturbing. The fact is that on leaving the house in Richmond a constable collared me. He became nasty, so I was nastier still, and gave him a Number Two right up his nose. And you know what that means!”

“Yes,” said the woman. “He won’t speak much for eight hours or so. I expect he saw the red light, eh?”

“No doubt. But I’ve got the little map here, and Barclay retains a sheet of blank paper.”

“Splendid!”

Then he drew it from his pocket and showed it to her.

“Oh! won’t Gordon be delighted to get this!” she cried. “It will gladden his heart. The dear boy is a bit down, and wants bucking up.”

“Where’s Jimmie?” asked Allen. “Tell him to get me a drink. I suppose he’s back by this time?”

The handsome woman in the lemon-coloured gown rose and rang the bell, and old Claribut, servile and dignified, entered.

“Hulloa! Dick!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have you sprung from? I thought you were in Nice!”

“So I was. But I’m in Welwyn now, and I want one of your very best cocktails—and one for Freda also.”

The old man retired and presently brought two drinks upon a silver salver.

“I shan’t be in to dinner to-night, Jimmie. I’m motoring Dick to London presently. I’ll be home about midnight. But I’ll take the key. Any news?”

“Nothing, madam,” replied the perfectly-mannered butler. “Only the gas-man came this morning, and the parson called and left some handbills about the Sunday school treat you are going to give next Thursday.”

“Oh! yes, I forgot about that infernal treat! See about it, Jimmie, and order the stuff and the marquee to be put up out in the field. See Jackson, the schoolmaster; he’ll help you. Say I’m busy.”

“Very well, madam.”

“Well!” laughed Allen, “so you are acting the great lady of the village now, Freda!”

“Of course. It impresses these people, and it only costs a few cups of tea and a few subscriptions. Gordon thinks it policy, but, by Jove! how I hate it all. Oh! you should see Gordon on a Sunday morning in his new hat and gloves. He’s really a spectacle!”

“Ah! I suppose a reputation is judicious out here,” her companion laughed.

“Yes. But I’ll drive you back to town,” she said. “We’ll dine at the Ritz. I want to meet a woman there. Wait a minute or two while I change my frock. I think you’ve done wonders to get hold of that map. Gordon will be most excited. He’ll be in Inverness to-morrow, and I’ll wire to him.”

“Guardedly,” he urged.

“Why, of course,” she laughed. “But that poor old bobby with a dose of Number Two! I bet he’s feeling pretty rotten!”

“It was the only way,” declared the cosmopolitan adventurer. “I wasn’t going to be hauled to the station and lose the map.”

“Of course not. Well, have another drink and wait a few minutes,” the woman said, whereupon he began to chat with old Claribut.

“I suppose the Riviera looks a bit hot and dusty just now,” remarked Jimmie, the butler.

“Yes. But Freda’s a wonder, isn’t she?” remarked Allen. “I’ve been asking her about that girl Edna. What has become of her?”

“I don’t know, Dick. So don’t ask me,” Claribut answered, as he smoked one of Gordon’s cigars. Truly that was a strange menage.

“But surely you know something,” Allen said. “No, I don’t,” snapped old Jimmie.

“Ah! you know something—something very private, eh?” remarked the wily Dick. “I suppose you are aware that old Sandys has a firm of inquiry agents out looking for her?”

“Has he really?” laughed Claribut. “Well, then let them find her. Who has he called in?”

“Fuller—who used to be at the Yard. You recollect him. He had you once, so you’d better be careful.”

“Yes, he had me for passing bad notes in Brussels,” remarked the old man grimly. “So old Sandys is employing him?”

“Yes, and the old man is determined to know the whereabouts of Edna Manners.”

“I don’t think he’ll ever know. But how came you to know about it?”

“I have a pal who is a friend of Fuller’s—Jack Shawford. He told me. Sandys suspects that something serious has happened to the girl.”

At this Claribut became very grave.

“What makes him suspect it? He surely doesn’t know that the girl was acquainted with that old parson Homfray!”

“No. I don’t think so,” was the reply.

“Ah! That’s good. If he had any suspicion of that, then Fuller might get on the right track, you know, because of this mining concession in Morocco.”

“What connexion has that with the disappearance of the pretty Edna?” asked his fellow crook, in ignorance.

“Oh! it’s a complicated affair, and it would take a long time to explain—but it has!”

“Then you know all about Edna and what has happened! I see it in your face, Jimmie! Just tell me in confidence.”

But the wary old man who had spent many years in prison cells only smiled and shook his head.

“I don’t interfere with other people’s affairs, Dick. You know that. I’ve enough to do to look after my own.”

“But where is Edna? Is she—dead?”

The old man merely shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of uncertainty and ignorance.

Chapter Sixteen.

The Light of Love.

It had been all summer—endless, cloudless summer in England, from the time of the violets to the now ripening corn. And there was no foreboding of storm or winter in the air that glorious day.

It was yet quite early in the morning, and high on the Hog’s Back, that ridge of the Surrey Hills that runs from Farnham towards Guildford, the gentle coolness of daybreak had not left the air.

Roddy and Elma had met for an early morning walk, she being again alone at the Towers. They had been walking across the fields and woods for an hour, and were now high up upon the hill which on one side gave views far away to the misty valley of the Thames, and on the other to Hindhead and the South Downs. The hill rose steep and sombre, its sides dark with chestnut woods, and all about them the fields were golden with the harvest.

They were tired with their walk, so they threw themselves down upon the grassy hillside and gazed away across the wide vista of hills and woodlands.

“How glorious it is!” declared the girl, looking fresh and sweet in a white frock and wide-brimmed summer hat trimmed with a saxe-blue scarf.

“Delightful! This walk is worth getting up early to take!” he remarked with soft love laughter, looking into her wonderful eyes that at the moment were fixed in fascination upon the scene.

Since that day months ago when he had declared his affection, he had never spoken directly of love, but only uttered it in those divers ways and words, those charms of touch and elegance of grace which are love’s subtlest, truest, and most perilous language.

Slowly, as she turned her beautiful eyes to his, he took her soft little hand, raising it gallantly to his lips.

“Elma,” he said after a long silence, “I have brought you here to tell you something—something that perhaps I ought to leave unsaid.”

“What?” she asked with sudden interest, her eyes opening widely.

“I want to say that I dislike your friend Mr Rutherford,” he blurted forth.

“Mr Rutherford!” she echoed. “He is father’s friend—not mine!”

“When I was at Park Lane the other night I noticed the marked attention he paid you—how he—”

“Oh! you are awfully foolish, Mr Homfray—Roddy! He surely pays me no attention.”

“You did not notice it, but I did!” cried the young man, whose heart was torn by fierce jealousy.

“Well, if he did, then I am certainly quite unaware of it.”

His hand closed fast and warm upon hers. “Ah!” he cried, his eyes seeking hers with eager wistfulness, “I do not wonder. Once I should have wondered, but now—I understand. He is rich,” he said softly and very sadly. “And, after all, I am only an adventurer.”

“What are you saying?” cried the girl.

“I know the truth,” he replied bitterly. “If you ever loved me you would one day repent, for I have nothing to offer you, Elma. I ought to be content with my life—it is good enough in its way, though nameless and fruitless also, perhaps. Yes, it is foolish of me to object to the attentions which Mr Rutherford pays you. He returned from Paris specially last Wednesday to be at your party.”

“I cannot understand!” she declared. “I do not want to understand! You are foolish, Roddy. I have no liking for Mr Rutherford. None whatever!”

“Are you quite certain of that?” he cried, again looking eagerly into her face with a fierce expression such as she had never seen before upon his handsome countenance.

“I am, Roddy,” she whispered.

“And you really love me?”

“I do,” she whispered again. “I shall be content anyhow, anywhere, any time—always—with you!”

He let go her hands—for him, almost roughly—and rose quickly to his feet, and silently paced to and fro under the high hedgerow. His straw hat was down over his eyes. He brushed and trampled the wild flowers ruthlessly as he went. She could not tell what moved him—anger or pain.

She loved him well—loved him with all the simple ardour and fierce affection of one of her young years. After all, she was not much more than a child, and had never before conceived a real affection for any living thing. She had not yet experienced that affinity which comes of maturer years, that subtle sympathy, that perfect passion and patience which alone enable one heart to feel each pang or each joy that makes another beat.

Roddy’s moods were often as changeful as the wind, while at times he was restless, impatient and depressed—perhaps when his wireless experiments gave no result. But it was often beyond her understanding.

Seeing him so perturbed, Elma wondered whether, in her confession of affection, she had said anything wrong. Was he, after all, growing tired of her? Had that sudden fit of jealousy been assumed on purpose to effect a breach?

She did not go to him. She still sat idly among the grasses.

A military aeroplane from Farnborough was circling overhead, and she watched it blankly.

After a little while her lover mastered whatever emotion had been aroused within him, and came back to her.

He spoke in his old caressing manner, even if a little colder than before.

“Forgive me, dearest,” he said softly. “I—I was jealous of that man Rutherford. That you really love me has brought to me a great and unbounded joy. No shadow has power to rest upon me to-day. But I—I somehow fear the future—I fear that yours would be but a sorry mode of existence with me. As I have said, my profession is merely that of a traveller and adventurer. Fortune may come in my way—but probably not. We cannot all be like the Italian beggar who bought the great Zuroff diamond—one of the finest stones in existence—for two soldi from a rag-dealer in the Mercato Vecchio in Ravenna.”

“You have your fortune to make, Roddy,” she said trustfully, taking his hand. “And you will make it. Keep a stout heart, and act with that great courage which you always possess.”

“I am disheartened,” he said.

“Disheartened! Why?”

“Because of the mystery—because of these strange mental attacks, this loss of memory to which I am so often subject. I feel that before I can go farther I must clear up the mystery of those lost days—clear myself.”

“Of what?” she asked, his hand still in hers.

“Of what that woman made me—compelled me to do,” he said in a harsh, broken voice. He had not told her he had discovered where he had been taken. He felt that he was always disbelieved.

“Now, Roddy, listen!” she cried, jumping up. “I believe that it is all hallucination on your part. You were kept prisoner at that house—as you have explained—but beyond that I believe that, your brain being affected by the injection the devils gave to you, you have imagined certain things.”

“But I did not imagine the finding of Edna Manners!” he cried. “Surely you believe me!”

“Of course I do, dear,” she said softly.

“Then why do you not tell who she was? At least let me clear up one point of the mystery.”

“Unfortunately I am not allowed to say anything. My father has forbidden it.”

“But what has your father to do with it? I know he has put the matter into the hands of ex-inspector Fuller. But why?”

“Father knows. I do not.”

“But he told me that much depended upon discovering her,” said her lover. “Why does he search when I know that she died in my arms?”

“You have never told him so. He wishes to obtain proof of whether she is dead, I think,” said the girl.

“Why?”

“That I cannot tell. He has his own motives, I suppose. I never dare ask him. It is a subject I cannot mention.”

“Why?”

“He forbade me ever to utter Edna’s name,” she replied slowly.

“That is very curious, when he told me that he must find her. And he employed the famous Fuller to search for trace of her. But,” he added, “trace they will never find, for she is dead. If I told him so he would certainly not believe me. They all think that I am half demented, and imagine weird things!” And he drew a long breath full of bitterness.

“Never mind,” she said. “It would be infamous to be melancholy, or athirst for great diamonds on such a glorious day.”

“True, my darling, true!” he said. “Let us sit down again. There! Lean back so as to be in the shade, and give me your hand. Now I want to kiss you.”

And taking her in his warm embrace, he rained kisses upon her full red lips in wild ecstasy, with low murmurs of love that were sweet in the young girl’s ears, while she, on her part, reclined in his arms without raising protest or trying to disengage herself from his strong clasp.

“I love you, Elma!” he cried. “That you have no thought for that man Rutherford who danced with you so many times on Wednesday night, who took you into supper and laughed so gaily with you, has greatly relieved me. I know I am poor, but I will do my very utmost to make good and to be worthy of your love.”

Again his lips met hers in a long, passionate caress. For both of them the world was nonexistent at that moment, and then, for the first time, her pretty lips pressed hard against his and he felt one long, fierce and affectionate kiss.

He knew that she was his at last!

Half an hour later, as they went down the steep hill and across the beautiful wooded country towards Haslemere, Roddy Homfray trod on air. For him the face of the world had suddenly changed. Theirs was a perfect peace and gladness in that morning of late summer. Elma, on her part, needed nothing more than the joy of the moment, and whatever darkness her lover may have seen in the future was all sunlight to her. Roddy’s glad smile was for her all-sufficient.

That day surely no shadow could fall between them and the sun!

As they walked along, Roddy suddenly exclaimed:

“What fools are clever folk!”

Surely his hours of melancholy had not returned, she thought.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because my enemies—my unknown mysterious enemies—your enemies—are fools, Elma, my darling.” And then perhaps for a moment they caught sight of each other’s souls.

“Perhaps they are. But we must both be guarded against them,” the girl said as he walked beside her.

“Guarded! Yes, Poor Edna has fallen their victim. Next, my darling, it might be you yourself! But of the motive I can discern nothing.”

“I! What have I done?” cried the girl, looking straight at him. “No, surely I can have no enemies.”

“We all have enemies, darling. Ah! you do not yet realise that in our life to-day falsehoods are daily food and that a lie is small coinage in which the interchange of the world, francs, marks, dollars, or diplomacy, is carried on to the equal convenience of us all. Lying lips are no longer an abomination. They are part of our daily existence.”

“You are horribly philosophic, Roddy!” she said with a laugh. “But I quite understand that it is so. The scandals in politics and in society prove it every day.”

“Yes. And let us—both of us—now that we love each other, be forewarned of the mysterious evil that threatens.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell. Yet I have a vague premonition that though the sun shines to-day, that all is bright and glorious, and that the clear horizon of our lives is speckless, yet very soon a darkness will arise to obscure further the mystery of that night in Welling Wood.”

“I sincerely hope not. Let us leave the affair to Inspector Fuller,” said Elma. “He was down to see my father the night before last. I do not know what was said. I left them together in the library when I went to bed.”

“You heard nothing?”

“Only as I came in I heard Fuller mention the name of your friend Andrew Barclay, who has gone to Marseilles to see the Moorish Minister.”

“Yes, Barclay is certainly my friend. But how could the detective have possibly known that?”

“Detectives are strangely inquisitive people,” remarked the girl, as hand in hand they went down the hill.

“That is so. And I only hope Mr Fuller will discover the truth concerning poor Edna Manners. Ah! I recollect it all so well. And yet the recollection goes giddily round and round and round in a sickening whirl of colour before my blinded eyes. It is all horrible! And it is all hideous and incredible. She died! I dashed to raise the alarm—and then I know no more! All I recollect is that I grovelled, frightened, sobbing! I saw the shimmering of sun-rays through the darkness of leaves. I was in a strange garden and it was day! And always since, whenever I have closed my eyes, I can see it still!”

“No, Roddy,” she urged. “Try to put it all aside. Try not to think of it!”

“But I can’t forget it!” he cried, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t—I can’t—it is all so terrible—horrible.”

In sympathy the girl took his arm. Her touch aroused him. Of a sudden all the strength of his being came to his aid.

“Forgive me, darling! Forgive me!” he craved.

And together they crossed the low old stile into the road which led down through a quaint little village, and out on the way to Haslemere.

On that same morning at noon Richard Allen again stood in the dining-room at Willowden, when Gordon Gray, alias Rex Rutherford, entered. He was in a light motor-coat, having just returned from his tour to Scotland.

“Well, Dick!” he cried cheerily in that easy, good-humoured way of his, that cheerful mannerism by which he made so many friends. “So you’ve had luck—eh?”

“Yes, after a narrow escape. Got caught, and had to fight a way out,” laughed the other.

“Not the first time. Do you recollect that night in Cannes two years ago? By Jove! I thought we were done.”

“Don’t let’s talk of nasty things,” his friend said. “Here’s the precious little map—the secret of the Wad Sus mines.”

“Splendid!” cried Gray, taking the small piece of folded paper to the window. “By Jove! it gives exact measurements in metres, and minute directions.”

“Yes. And the old Minister has in his possession a great emerald taken from the ancient workings.”

“We ought to get that. It will show bona fides when we deal with the concession. It would be better to buy it than to get it by other means. If it were stolen there would be a hue-and-cry raised. But if we could get it honestly—honestly, mark you, Dick!—we could get the official certificate saying where and when it was found.”

“True!” remarked Allen, who chanced to be standing near the window and whose attention had suddenly been attracted by a movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the lawn. “But don’t move, Gordon!” he cried quickly. “Keep quiet! Don’t show yourself! Get back behind the curtains. There’s somebody over in the bushes yonder, watching the window! Just by the yew-tree there. Watch!”

In an instant Gordon Gray was on the alert. For some moments both men stood with bated breath, watching eagerly.

Suddenly the figure moved and a ray of sunlight revealed a woman’s face.

“By Gad! Dick! Yes, I’ve seen that woman somewhere before! What can be her game? She’s evidently taking observations! Call Freda and Jimmie, quick! We must all get out of this at once! There’s not a second to lose! Quick!”

Chapter Seventeen.

The Ears of the Blind.

The discovery of the watcher at Willowden was most disconcerting to Gray and his accomplices.

They recognised the stranger as a person who had once kept observation upon them in London two years before, and now saw to their dismay that their headquarters had been discovered.

So that night Gray and Claribut worked hard in frantic haste and dismantled the wireless installation, which they packed in boxes, while Freda eagerly collected her own belongings. Then making sure that they were not still being watched they stowed the boxes in the car, and creeping forth sped rapidly away along the Great North Road.

“I don’t like the look of things?” Gray muttered to Freda, who sat beside him. “We’ve only got away in the nick of time. The police might have been upon us before morning. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”

And then a silence fell between them as they drove through the pelting rain. Once again they had wriggled out of an awkward situation.

At a first-floor window of an ancient half-timbered house in a narrow, dingy street behind the cathedral in quaint old Bayeux, in Normandy, a pretty, fair-haired young girl was silting in the sunshine, her hands lying idly in her lap.

It was noon. The ill-paved street below—a street of sixteenth-century houses with heavy carved woodwork and quaint gables—was deserted, as the great bell of the magnificent old cathedral, built by Odo, the bishop, after the Norman Conquest of Britain, boomed forth the hour of twelve.

The girl did not move or speak. She seldom did, because first, her blue eyes were fixed and sightless, and, secondly, she was always strange of manner.

Jean Nicole, the boot-repairer, and his wife, with whom the girl lived, were honest country folk of Normandy. Both came from Vaubadon, a remote little village on the road to St. Lô. After the war they had moved to Bayeux, when one day they chanced to see an advertisement in the Ouest Éclair, an advertisement inviting a trustworthy married couple to take charge of a young lady who was slightly mentally deficient, and offering a good recompense.

They answered the advertisement, with the result that they were invited to the Hôtel de l’Univers at St. Malo, where the worthy pair were shown up to a private sitting-room wherein sat a well-dressed Englishman and a smartly-attired woman, his wife.

They explained that they had been left in charge of the young lady in question, who was unfortunately blind. Her father’s sudden death, by accident, had so preyed upon her mind that it had become deranged.

The man, who gave the name of Mr Hugh Ford, explained that he and his wife were sailing from Havre to New York on business on the following Saturday, and they required someone to look after the unfortunate young lady during their absence. Would Monsieur and Madame Nicole do so?

The boot-repairer and his stout spouse, eager to increase their income, expressed their readiness, and within an hour arrangements were made, an agreement drawn up by which the pair were to receive from a bank in Paris a certain monthly sum for mademoiselle’s maintenance, and the young lady was introduced to them.

Her affliction of blindness was pitiable. Her eyes seemed fixed as she groped her way across the room, and it was with difficulty that her guardian made her understand that she was going to live with new friends.

At last she uttered two words only in English.

“I understand.”

The middle-aged Frenchman and his wife knew no English, while it seemed that the young lady knew no French.

“Her name is Betty Grayson,” explained Mr Ford, speaking in French. “She seldom speaks. Yet at times she will, perhaps, become talkative, and will probably tell you in English some absurd story or other, always highly dramatic, about some terrible crime. But, as I tell you, Monsieur Nicole, her mind is unhinged, poor girl! So take no notice of her fantastic imagination.”

“Très bien, monsieur,” replied the dark-faced boot-repairer. “I quite follow. Poor mademoiselle!”

“Yes. Her affliction is terribly unfortunate. You see her condition—quite hopeless, alas! She must have complete mental rest. To be in the presence of people unduly excites her, therefore it is best to keep her indoors as much as possible. And when she goes out, let it be at night when nobody is about.”

“I understand, monsieur.”

“The best London specialists on mental diseases have already examined her. Poor Betty! They have told me her condition, therefore, if she gets worse it will be useless to call in a doctor. And she may get worse,” he added meaningly, after a pause.

“And when will monsieur and madame be back?” inquired Madame Nicole.

“It is quite impossible to tell how long my business will take,” was Mr Ford’s reply. “We shall leave Havre by the Homeric on Saturday, and I hope we shall be back by November. But your monthly payments will be remitted to you by the Crédit Lyonnais until our return.”

So the pair had gone back by train from St. Malo to quiet old Bayeux, to that dingy, ramshackle old house a few doors from that ancient mansion, now the museum in which is preserved in long glass cases the wonderful strip of linen cloth worked in outline by Queen Matilda and her ladies, representing the Conquest of England by her husband, William of Normandy, and the overthrow of Harold—one of the treasures of our modern world. On the way there they found that Miss Grayson could speak French.

The rooms to which they brought the poor sightless English mademoiselle were small and frowsy. The atmosphere was close, and pervaded by the odour of a stack of old boots which Monsieur Nicole kept in the small back room, in which he cut leather and hammered tacks from early morn till nightfall.

From the front window at which the girl sat daily, inert and uninterested, a statuesque figure, silent and sightless, a good view could be obtained of the wonderful west façade of the magnificent Gothic Cathedral, the bells of which rang forth their sweet musical carillon four times each hour.

Summer sightseers who, with guide-book in hand, passed up the old Rue des Chanoines to the door of the Cathedral, she heard, but she could not see. Americans, of whom there were many, and a sprinkling of English, chattered and laughed upon their pilgrimage to the magnificent masterpiece of the Conqueror’s half-brother, and some of them glanced up and wondered at the motionless figure seated staring out straight before her.

It is curious how very few English travellers ever go to Bayeux, the cradle of their race, and yet how many Americans are interested in the famous tapestries and the marvellous monument in stone.

On that warm noon as Betty Grayson sat back in the window, silent and motionless, her brain suddenly became stirred, as it was on occasions, by recollections, weird, horrible and fantastic.

Madame Nicole, in her full black dress and the curious muslin cap of the shape that has been worn for centuries by the villagers of Vaubadon—for each village in Normandy has its own fashion in women’s caps so that the denizens of one village can, in the markets, be distinguished from those of another—crossed the room from the heavy, old oak sideboard, laying the midday meal. In the room beyond Jean, her husband, was earning his daily bread tapping, and ever tapping upon the boots.

“Madame,” exclaimed the girl, rising with a suddenness which caused the boot-repairer’s wife to start. “There is a strange man below. He keeps passing and re-passing and looking up at me.”

The stout, stolid Frenchwoman in her neat and spotless cap started, and smiled good-humouredly.

“Then you can see at last—eh?” she cried. “Perhaps he is only some sightseer from the Agence Cook.” The woman was astounded at the sudden recovery of the girl’s sight.

“No. I do not think so. He looks like an English business man. Come and see,” said the girl.

Madame crossed to the window, but only two women were in sight, neighbours who lived across the way, and with them was old Abbé Laugée who had just left his confessional and was on his way home to déjeuner.

“Ah! He’s gone!” the girl said in French. “I saw him passing along last evening, and he seemed to be greatly interested in this house.”

“He may perhaps have a friend living above us,” suggested Madame Nicole.

Scarcely had she replied, however, when a knock was heard at the outside door, which, on being opened, revealed the figure of a rather tall, spruce-looking Englishman, well-dressed in a dark grey suit.

“I beg pardon, madame,” he said in good French, “but I believe you have a Mademoiselle Grayson living with you?”

Ere the woman could speak the girl rushed forward, and staring straight into the face of the man, cried:

“Why! It’s—it’s actually Mr Porter!”

The man laughed rather uneasily, though he well concealed his chagrin. He had believed that she was blind.

“I fear you have mistaken me for somebody else,” he said. Then, turning to the woman, he remarked: “This is Miss Grayson, I suppose?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Ah! Then she imagines me to be somebody named Porter—eh?” he remarked in a tone of pity.

“I imagine nothing,” declared the girl vehemently. “I used to, but I am now growing much better, and I begin to recollect. I recognise you as Mr Arthur Porter, whom I last saw at Willowden, near Welwyn. And you know it is the truth.”

The man shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Madame Nicole said in French:

“I have heard that mademoiselle is suffering from—well, from hallucinations.”

“Yes, monsieur, she does. For days she will scarcely speak. Her memory comes and goes quite suddenly. And she has to-day recovered her sight.”

“That is true,” replied the pretty blue-eyed girl. “I recognise this gentleman as Mr Arthur Porter,” she cried again. “I recollect many things—that night at Farncombe when—when I learnt the truth, and then lost my reason.”

“Take no notice, monsieur,” the woman urged. “Poor mademoiselle! She tells us some very odd stories sometimes—about a young man whom she calls Monsieur Willard. She says he was murdered.”

“And so he was!” declared the girl in English. “Mr Homfray can bear me out! He can prove it!” she said determinedly.

Their visitor was silent for a moment. Then he asked:

“What is this strange story?”

“You know it as well as I do, Mr Porter,” she replied bitterly. But the stranger only smiled again as though in pity.

“My name is not Porter,” he assured her. “I am a doctor, and my name is George Crowe, a friend of your guardian, Mr Ford. He called upon me in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and as I was travelling to Paris he asked me to come here and see you.”

“What?” shrieked the girl. “Dare you stand there and deny that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of that woman, Freda Crisp!”

“I certainly do deny it! And further, I have not the pleasure of knowing your friend.”

Betty Grayson drew a long breath as her blue eyes narrowed and her brow knit in anger.

“I know that because of my lapses of memory and my muddled brain I am not believed,” she said. “But I tell you that poor Mr Willard was killed—murdered, and that the identity of the culprits is known to me as well as to old Mr Homfray, the rector of Little Farncombe.”

“Ah! That is most interesting,” remarked the doctor, humouring her as he would a child. “And who, pray, was this Mr Willard?”

“Mr Willard was engaged to be married to me!” she said in a hard voice. “He lived in a house in Hyde Park Square, in London, a house which his father had left him, and he also had a pretty seaside house near Cromer. But he was blackmailed by that adventuress, your friend, Mrs Crisp, and when at last he decided to unmask and prosecute the woman and her friends he was one morning found dead in very mysterious circumstances. At first it was believed that he had committed suicide, but on investigation it was found that such was not the case. He had been killed by some secret and subtle means which puzzled and baffled the police. The murder is still an unsolved mystery.”

“And you know the identity of the person whom you allege killed your lover—eh?” asked the doctor with interest.

“Yes, I do. And so does Mr Homfray.”

“Then why have neither of you given information to the police?” asked the visitor seriously.

“Because of certain reasons—reasons known to old Mr Homfray.”

“This Mr Homfray is your friend, I take it?”

“He is a clergyman, and he is my friend,” was her reply. Then suddenly she added: “But why should I tell you this when you yourself are a friend of the woman Crisp, and of Gordon Gray?”

“My dear young lady,” he exclaimed, laughing, “you are really making a very great error. To my knowledge I have never seen you before I passed this house last evening, and as for this Mrs Crisp, I have never even heard of her! Yet what you tell me concerning Hugh Willard is certainly of great interest.”

“Hugh Willard!” she cried. “You betray yourself, Mr Porter! How do you know his Christian name? Tell me that!”

“Because you have just mentioned it,” replied the man, not in the least perturbed.

“I certainly have not!” she declared, while Madame Nicole, not understanding English, stood aside trying to gather the drift of the conversation.

The man’s assertion that his name was Crowe, and that he was a doctor when she had recognised him as an intimate friend of the woman who had blackmailed her lover, aroused the girl’s anger and indignation. Why was he there in Bayeux?

“I tell you that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of Gordon Gray and his unscrupulous circle of friends!” cried the girl, who, turning to the stout Frenchwoman, went on in French: “This man is an impostor! He calls himself a doctor, yet I recognise him as a man named Porter, the friend of the woman who victimised the man I loved! Do not believe him?”

“Madame!” exclaimed the visitor with a benign smile, as he bowed slightly. “I think we can dismiss all these dramatic allegations made by poor mademoiselle—can we not? Your own observations have,” he said, speaking in French, “shown you the abnormal state of the young lady’s mind. She is, I understand, prone to imagining tragic events, and making statements that are quite unfounded. For that reason Mr Ford asked me to call and see her, because—to be frank—I am a specialist on mental diseases.”

“Ah! Doctor! I fear that mademoiselle’s mind is much unbalanced by her poor father’s death,” said the woman. “Monsieur Ford explained it all to me, and urged me to take no notice of her wild statements. When is Mr Ford returning to France?”

“In about three months, I believe. Then he will no doubt relieve you of your charge—which, I fear, must be a heavy one.”

“Sometimes, yes. But mademoiselle has never been so talkative and vehement as she is to-day.”

“Because I, perhaps, bear some slight resemblance to some man she once knew—the man named Porter, I suppose.”

“You are Arthur Porter!” declared the girl in French. “When I first saw you hazily last night I thought that you resembled him, but now I see you closer and plainly I know that you are! I would recognise you by your eyes among a thousand men!”

But the visitor only shrugged his shoulders again and declared to madame that mademoiselle’s hallucinations were, alas! pitiable.

Then he questioned the woman about her charge, and when he left he handed her a five-hundred-franc note which he said Mr Ford had sent to her.

But a few moments later when on his way down the narrow, old-world street with its overhanging houses, he muttered ominously to himself in English:

“I must get back to Gordon as soon as possible. That girl is more dangerous than we ever contemplated. As we believed, she knows too much—far too much! And if Sandys finds her then all will be lost. It was a false step of Gordon’s to leave her over here. She is recovering. The situation is distinctly dangerous. Therefore we must act—without delay!”

Chapter Eighteen.

Wiles of the Wicked.

On the day that Arthur Porter, under the guise of a doctor from Philadelphia, had visited Edna Manners at quaint old Bayeux, Roddy Homfray had, since early morning, been in his wireless-room at Little Farncombe Rectory, making some experiments with the new receiving-set which he had constructed in a cigar-box.

The results had been highly satisfactory and very gratifying. He had been experimenting with a new organic and easily manufactured super-sensitive crystal which he had discovered to be a very delicate detector of wireless waves when an electrical circuit was passed through it, and by dint of long and patient tests of pressure electricity, had come to the conclusion that it was quite as effective as the usual three valves. This meant a very great improvement in the reception of wireless telephony.

As that afternoon he sat at tea with his father he explained the trend of his piezo-electric experiments. The discovery was entirely his own, for though others had experimented with inorganic crystals, quartz and gems, trying to solve the riddle why sugar and certain salts should cool from liquid into different patterns of crystals, nobody had ever dreamed of constructing such a detector or of using such a manufactured “crystal.”

The secret of the new crystals was his own, and, judging from the efficiency of the new portable receiving-set, would be of very considerable value. When, later on, deaf old Mrs Bentley had cleared the table, father and son sat smoking, and Roddy said:

“I’m going along to the Towers to dinner. Mr Sandys has asked me to have a hand at bridge afterwards.”

“Elma is away, isn’t she?”

“Yes. At Harrogate with her aunt. She returns on Tuesday,” the young man replied. “And to-morrow Barclay meets the Kaid Ahmed-el-Hafid at the Ritz to receive the concession. He had a telegram from the Kaid last Friday to say that the concession had been granted in my name, and that he was leaving Tangiers with it on the following day.”

“Well, my boy, it really looks as though Fortune is about to smile on you at last! But we must always remember that she is but a fickle jade at best.”

“Yes, father. I shall not feel safe until the concession is actually in my hands. Barclay has promised to introduce me to the Kaid, who will give me every assistance in my prospecting expedition. It is fortunate that we already hold the secret of the exact position of the ancient workings.”

“It is, my boy,” remarked the old rector thoughtfully. “Possibly you can induce Mr Sandys to finance the undertaking and float a company—eh?”

“That is my idea,” his son replied. “But I shall not approach him until I have been out to the Wad Sus and seen for myself. Then I can speak with authority, and conduct to the spot any expert engineer he may like to send out there.”

Afterwards Roddy glanced at the old grandfather clock with its brass face which stood in the corner, rose, and after dressing, shouted a merry “good-bye” to the rector, and left the house to dine with the great financier, with whose daughter he was so deeply in love.

Their secret they withheld from Mr Sandys. Theirs was a fierce, all-absorbing passion, a mutual affection that was intense. They loved each other fondly and, Mr Sandys being so often in London, they saw each other nearly every day. Indeed, for hours on end Elma would sit in the wireless-room and assist her lover in those delicate and patient experiments which he had been daily making. Roddy, in the weeks that had passed, had regained his normal condition, though sometimes, at odd moments, he still experienced curious lapses of memory.

Old Mr Homfray had not been very well of late. His heart was naturally weak, and the doctor had for several years warned him against any undue excitement or hurrying when walking uphill. Once while conducting morning service, he was seized by faintness and was prevented from preaching his sermon. The narrow, gossiping world of Little Farncombe declared that their rector needed a change, and Mr Homfray had promised his churchwardens that he would take one as soon as he could get someone to lock after the parish in his absence.

On the previous day he had received a letter from Gray’s solicitors informing him that the mortgaged property at Totnes had been sold, and enclosing the paltry sum of fourteen pounds twelve shillings as the balance due to him. This fad had irritated him and caused him the greatest indignation. Gordon Gray had defied him and had foreclosed the mortgage after all! He had, however, made no mention of it to Roddy. The matter was his secret—and his alone, for it so closely concerned that closed chapter of his earlier days.

To Roddy his own strange experience following the tragic discovery in Welling Wood was still a mystery. Only a few days before he had, out of sheer curiosity, taken train to Welwyn and walked out to Willowden. But the house was closed and the garden neglected, and on inquiry in the neighbourhood he had learnt that the people from London had taken the place furnished, and that their lease being up they had left. Where they had gone nobody knew.

To Park Lane Mr Rex Rutherford—as Gordon Gray called himself—had accompanied his friend Porter, alias Harrison, on two occasions, and had endeavoured to make himself extremely affable to Elma, by whose extraordinary beauty he had become greatly attracted. The girl, however, instinctively disliked him. Why, she could not herself tell. He was elegantly-dressed, and his manners were those of a gentleman, yet he had an oleaginous air about him which annoyed her on both occasions. Once she had been compelled to dance with him, and he had been full of empty compliments. But on subsequent occasions when he requested “the pleasure” she managed to excuse herself.

Indeed, she went so far as to suggest to her father that he should not invite Mr Rutherford again. Mr Sandys was rather surprised, but said nothing, and obeyed his daughter’s wish.

Roddy had left the Rectory about an hour and the dusk was gathering into night, when a closed car with strong headlights, coming from the direction of London and driven by a middle-aged man, drew up outside the village, and from it there alighted a short, stout man wearing a green velour Homburg hat.

“I won’t be long,” he remarked to the driver, and at once set out on foot in the direction of the Rectory.

Old Norton Homfray was in his study looking up a text in his big well-worn “Cruden,” when he heard a ring, and knowing Mrs Bentley to be upstairs—and that if downstairs she would never hear it—he went to the door and threw it open, expecting his visitor to be one of his parishioners.

Instead, he came face to face with his enemy, Gordon Gray.

For a second he was too surprised for words.

“Well,” he asked with dignity, “why are you here?”

“Oh!—well, I happened to be near here, and I thought I’d just pay you a call. I want to see you. May I come in?”

“If you wish,” growled the old clergyman, admitting him and conducting him to the study where the lamp was lit.

Then when his visitor was in the room, he turned to him and said:

“So you have carried out your threat, Gray, and sold my houses in Totnes—eh? You’ve taken my little income from me, as that woman told me you intended.”

“I had to; I’m so hard-up. Since the war I’ve been very hard hit,” replied the man. “I’m sorry, of course.”

“Yes. I suppose you are very sorry!” sarcastically remarked the old man, pale with anger. “Once, Gray, I trusted you, and—”

“And I befriended you in consequence,” interrupted the other. “I lent you money.”

“You did—to your own advantage,” said the old rector bitterly. “But let all that pass. I want you to tell me—nay, I demand to know!—what occurred in the wood outside this house on the night when Freda came here in secret.”

“How do I know? I was not here.”

“You were here. I saw you in church.”

“I came to listen to the excellent maxims you put before these yokels—you, who have been in a criminal dock. A fine moral leader you are, Norton?” he laughed scornfully. “You ought to be hounded out of the parish as a hypocrite and a black-coated humbug. And if you don’t take care you will be!”

“And you! I—”

“Take care. I know too much for you, remember,” said Gray seriously.

“You ruin me, and now you would blackmail me—as you and that woman Crisp have blackmailed others. I know your game. It has been played too long.”

“You are making allegations that may prove as dangerous to yourself as to me, Homfray,” said the adventurer coldly, gazing straight into the other’s eyes.

“What do you mean?” cried the rector fiercely. “I know something—and I suspect a good deal more. Edna Manners died in Welling Wood on that fatal night, and my boy Roddy, because he discovered her, fell into your unscrupulous hands. Now, confess it—or, by Heaven! I’ll tell the truth concerning young Willard!”

“Really, Homfray,” the visitor remarked, quite unperturbed. “You’re a very nice, delightful parson—eh? Fancy you preaching in that pulpit, as I sat and listened to you on that Sunday night! You—of all men!”

“I demand to know the truth. Poor Edna was engaged to marry that boy whom you, with that accursed woman, fleeced with such audacity. And you had the further audacity to ask me to assist you in your vile plans.”

“Why not? You live askew, just as we do—only you are slick enough to put on a clerical collar, as to six-tenths of the world the ‘cloth’ can do no evil,” he laughed.

“Edna Manners knew too much for you. I recognised her from Roddy’s description. And then Roddy himself was drugged—or something.”

“It is a matter which neither of us need discuss, Homfray,” said the other. “There is six of me and half a dozen of you. Your son is all right again, deep in his wireless experiments and, I hear, in love with a very charming girl. What more do you want?”

“I want justice and fair play!” said the old rector in desperation. “You, whom I believed to be my real friend, have played a deep and crooked game. Place your cards on the table for once, Gray, and tell me why. I have never been your enemy—only your friend!”

The stocky, beady-eyed adventurer paused for a few seconds. The question nonplussed him. Suddenly he blurted forth:

“You didn’t play a straight game over young Willard. We might have shared equally thirty thousand pounds, but you wouldn’t. I confess, Homfray, your refusal annoyed me.”

“Oh! Then that is the secret!” he said. “I recollect it all. I told you that if you attempted to make that coup and divest the poor boy of everything so that he could not marry Edna, I would go to the police. You pretended to withhold your hand in fear of my threat. But Freda and your unscrupulous friend ‘Guinness’ managed to get the money from him and afterwards close his mouth so that the poor lad could tell no tales.”

“It’s a lie! A damnable lie!” cried Gray, fiercely indignant.

“I have only spoken the truth, and you know it,” declared the old rector calmly. “As a minister of the Gospel, I am not in the habit of lying or being, uncharitable towards my fellow-men.”

“Oh! stop that silly rot! You are on a par with us. Don’t pose as a saint?”

“I am not a saint by any means, Gray. But I try to live honestly and in the fear of God.”

“And the fear of man also, I hope!” the other laughed. “Look here, is it to be war to the end between us? Or will you consider a little proposition I have in mind? Remember that I can very easily go to your bishop and have you kicked out of this little snuggery of yours. And what would your dear son think of all your past adventures—eh?”

“Do it. Go to the bishop!” cried the poor old rector in desperation. “I tell you that I will never lift a finger to aid an assassin.”

“Whom do you call an assassin?” asked Gray, putting forward his dark face threateningly to the rector.

“You—Gordon Gray!” replied the elder man fearlessly. “I know the truth concerning that poor boy Willard’s death, and now that you have ruined me I have determined to risk my position here and reveal the truth!”

Gray, never at a loss for words, stood silent. Homfray’s pale determined countenance told him that he meant what he had said. He realised, for the first time, that in attacking Roddy he had taken a false step. The boy’s father suspected the truth. Nay, he knew it.

But there was the concession—and Elma! He was determined, at all hazards, to possess himself of both as the crowning point of his marvellously adventurous career.

“I defy you to utter a single word!” cried Gray, with clenched fists. “If you do, it will be the worse for you! Remember that!”

“I repeat what I told your accomplice, Freda Crisp. I will rid society of you both as social pests—vampires who prey upon the unwary and inexperienced,” shouted the old clergyman in a frenzy of anger. “You have attacked me and mine, and now I will, in turn, retaliate. Get out of my house this instant!”

Gordon Gray glanced keenly at the old rector with his shrewd dark eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

“Homfray, you are a fool?” he declared. “Why can’t we arrange matters? I came here to put a little proposition to you—that I should join your son in that mining concession he is obtaining from the Moorish Government.”

“Join my son!” shrieked the old man. “I would rather that Roddy grasped hands with Satan himself than with you! I—I—”

And his face became crimson as he gasped for breath, and suddenly clutched wildly at his throat.

“I—I—”

But he uttered no further intelligible word. Next second a seizure, due to the violent excitement, held him rigid, and a few seconds later he sank into the arm-chair and expired in the presence of his enemy, thus carrying with him to the grave the secret of Hugh Willard’s tragic end.

Gordon Gray stood there in silence and watching with interest, amused rather than otherwise, realising that Nature herself had, by a strange freak, effected still another coup in his own interests.

The one enemy he feared had been swept from his path! Of Roddy he took no heed.

The road to fortune and to Elma was now rendered clear for him.

Chapter Nineteen.

A Matter of Urgency.

When Roddy Homfray returned from Farncombe Towers shortly before midnight he was staggered to find his father lying back in his arm-chair.

Horrified, he tried to rouse him. But at once he saw that he was dead.

He raised the alarm, and Doctor Denton was at once fetched out in his pyjamas from the other end of the village.

“As I feared,” said his friend when he saw the dead rector. “He has had another heart attack which has unfortunately proved fatal.”

“But he was quite all right and bright when I left him at seven,” Roddy cried in despair.

“No doubt. But your father has had a weak heart for years. I’ve attended him for it, so there will be no need for an inquest. Indeed, only a week ago I warned him that any undue excitement might end fatally.”

“But he has had no excitement!” cried the dead man’s son, looking in despair around the cosy little study, where upon the writing-table “Cruden’s Concordance” still lay open, as it had done when Gordon Gray had entered.

“Apparently not,” Denton admitted. “But perhaps he may have been secretly worrying over something. We shall, I fear, never know. Your father was a rather secretive man, I believe, wasn’t he, Roddy?”

“Yes. He was. He held some secret or other from me, the nature of which I could never make out,” said his son, overcome with grief. At first he could not believe that his father, whom he idolised, was actually dead. But now he realised his loss, and tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“A secret!” exclaimed his friend the doctor. “Of what nature?”

“I have no idea. He once warned me against a certain man and a certain woman, who were apparently his enemies. But he would tell me nothing definite—nothing!”

“When you came home, was the front-door locked?” asked the doctor.

“No, my father always leaves it unlocked for me.”

“He expected you to come in later, and was no doubt at work here preparing his sermon,” said Denton, glancing at the open reference book lying upon the blotting-pad. Indeed, beside the copy of “Cruden” was a sheet of sermon paper with a number of headings written in the neat uniform hand of a classical scholar, as old Mr Homfray was.

“Yes. It seems so,” said his son. “Apparently he felt the seizure approaching, and, leaving the table, crossed to the chair, and sinking into it, he breathed his last. Poor dear father! Why was I not here to assist him, instead of playing bridge? I—I’ll never forgive myself, Denton!”

“But you could not have foretold this. Who could?” asked his friend. “Endocarditis, from which your father was suffering, is quite a common complaint and very often causes sudden death, especially when it is ulcerative, as in your lamented father’s case. No medical aid would have saved him.”

“And he knew this, and never told me!” cried Roddy.

“He was secretive, as I have already said,” answered the doctor. “Your poor father’s death was caused by embolism; I have suspected it for some time.”

While Roddy and Denton were speaking at the dead man’s side, Gordon Gray entered the tawdrily-decorated dancing-room of a certain disreputable night-club off Regent Street known as “The Gay Hundred”—a haunt of cocaine sellers and takers—and glanced eagerly around. He had driven up in his car a few doors away, and the doorkeeper had bowed to him and taken his coat and hat as he rushed in.

His quick eyes espied a table in the corner at which sat Freda Crisp, in a daring black-and-orange gown without sleeves, smoking a cigarette in an amber holder, laughing, and drinking champagne with two young men in evening clothes, while about them whirled many couples dancing, the women mostly with artificially fair hair and wearing deeply-cut gowns, while some of them smoked cigarettes as they danced to the wild strains of the blatant orchestra.

Freda’s eyes met those of her friend Gray, and she read in them a message. She was a woman of quick perception and astounding intuition. Her adventures had been many and constant, and if she could have recorded them in print the book would certainly have been amongst the “best sellers” of which the public hear so much.

The men with her were strangers to Gordon, therefore, assuming an instant carelessness, he lounged over, bowed, and greeted her. He did not know on what terms she was with the pair with whom she was drinking “bubbly,” whether, indeed, they were pigeons worth plucking. Therefore his attitude was one of extreme caution. Gordon Gray was far too clever ever to spoil “a good thing” in the course of being engineered by any of his accomplices of either sex.

“Oh! Good-evening, Mr Gray!” Freda exclaimed. “Fancy your being here to-night! I never suspected you of being a member of this place!”

“I’m not. A friend of mine has introduced me,” he said, and then, when the elegantly-dressed woman in the daring black-and-orange gown had introduced her companions, Gray sat down at the table and took a cigarette.

Presently she excused herself from her two friends, saying:

“You’ll forgive me if I have just this one dance with Mr Gray—won’t you?”

And both joined the fox-trot which was at that moment commencing.

“Well, I see by your face, Gordon, that something has happened. What?” she whispered as they took the floor.

“Something good. Old Homfray is dead!”

“Dead!” gasped the woman. “But you didn’t do it—eh?”

“No. I might have done. You know what I intended to do if he cut up rough—but luck came to my aid. The old hypocrite died suddenly from heart disease, I think. At any rate, he got into a passion and sank into his chair and expired. And then I quietly retired and drove back here to town. Nobody saw me. Luck—eh?”

“By Jove! yes. That relieves us of a great deal of worry, doesn’t it?” said the woman. “It’s the best bit of news I’ve heard for years. While the old man lived there was always a risk—always a constant danger that he might throw discretion to the winds and give us away.”

“You’re quite right, Freda. He was the only person in the world I feared.”

“And yet you defied him!” she remarked. “That is the only way. Never let your enemy suspect that you are frightened of him,” said the stout, beady-eyed man in the navy-blue suit.

“What about the young pup?” asked the woman in a low voice as they danced together over the excellent floor, while yellow-haired, under-dressed women who bore on their countenances the mark of cocaine-taking, and prosperous, vicious-looking men, both young and old, sat at the little tables, laughing, drinking and looking on.

“He knows nothing, and he’s going to be useful to us.”

“But he’s very deeply in love with Elma.”

“Of course. But to part them will be quite easy. Leave all that to me.”

There was a pause.

“And you will desert me for that slip of a girl—eh, Gordon?” asked the handsome woman suddenly in a strange, unusual voice.

He started. He had never realised that the woman’s jealousy had been aroused, but, nevertheless, he knew that a jealous woman always constitutes a danger when one sails near the wind.

“Oh! my dear Freda, please don’t talk like that,” he laughed. “Surely ours is a business connexion. Your interests are mine, and vice versa. Have they not been so for five years? You have kept your eyes open for the pigeons, while I have plucked them for you and given you half share of the spoil.”

“And now you contemplate deserting me—and perhaps marrying the daughter of a wealthy man. Where do I come in?”

“As you always have done, my dear Freda. Both of us are out for money—and big money we must get from somewhere. That concession in Morocco is my main object at the present moment. We already have the plan, and Barclay has not yet discovered his loss.”

“He may do so at any moment. What then?”

“Why, nothing. He will have no suspicion as to who has secured it or how it was taken from his safe. Besides, the old Moor is arriving at the Ritz and is bringing the actual signed concession over from Fez. And now that the parson is dead all will be plain sailing. Have you heard from Arthur to-day?”

“Not a word. He should be back from Bayeux in a couple of days.”

“I shall want him to help me when young Homfray gets the concession in his possession.”

The woman looked him straight in the face, and then, after another pause, asked in a whisper: “What! Do you intend that an—an accident shall happen to him—eh?”

“Perhaps,” replied the man with a grim smile. “Who knows?”

“Ah! I see!” she exclaimed quickly. “There cannot be two candidates for the hand of Elma Sandys!”

And he nodded in the affirmative, a few moments later leading her back to the two young men who had been entertaining her, and then he left the place.

The ill-suppressed jealousy which his accomplice had expressed considerably perturbed him. He saw that if he intended to attain success with Elma he must first propitiate Freda. A single word from her as an enemy would ruin all his chances.

He was not blind to the fact either that Elma had no great liking for him, and that, on the other hand, the girl was deeply in love with the late rector’s son. Though he had declared to Freda that all was plain sailing, he viewed the situation with considerable misgiving. As Rex Rutherford he had made a very favourable impression upon Mr Sandys, but women being gifted with an often uncanny intuition, Elma had from the first viewed him with suspicion. His studied attentions had annoyed her. And now that Freda had shown jealousy, a further difficulty, and even danger, had arisen.

Since their hurried departure from Willowden Freda had taken another furnished house called The Elms, not far from Laleham, on the Thames, and there old Claribut had again been installed as butler and general factotum, while Gray, under the name of Rutherford, occupied a handsome suite of chambers in Dover Street, to which his new chauffeur eventually drove him that night.

Next day the village of Little Farncombe was plunged into grief at the astounding news that their popular rector was dead. Old Mr Sandys’ valet told his master the sad truth when he took up his early cup of tea, and within an hour the old financier called at the Rectory and offered his sincere condolences to Roddy, while later he sent a telegram to Elma at Harrogate announcing the tragic fact.

Not a soul had apparently seen the dead man’s visitor either arrive or depart. Mrs Bentley had, as was her habit, gone to bed without wishing her master “Good-night.” Nobody, therefore, discovered that the poor old gentleman had been taken ill in consequence of violent anger expressed to a visitor, for the latter had been clever enough to slip away without being seen.

Before noon Roddy received a long telegram from Elma, among many others, and three days later the body of the Reverend Norton Homfray was laid to rest in the quiet old churchyard which almost joined the Rectory garden. From far and near came crowds of mourners, and many were the beautiful wreaths placed upon the coffin by loving hands, though none was more beautiful than that which Elma herself brought from the Towers.

That evening, when the funeral was over, and all the mourners had gone, Roddy stood in the wireless-room with his loved one clasped in his strong arms.

He was pale, serious, and grief-stricken. She saw it, and kissed him upon the lips in mute sympathy.

He held his breath as his eyes wandered over the long row of experimental instruments which had been his chief hobby and delight. But with his father’s death all the interest in them had been swept away.

This he declared to Elma in a tone of deep and poignant sorrow.

“No, Roddy dear,” she exclaimed, her hand tenderly placed on his shoulder. “You must strive to bear your loss, great as it is. I know how you loved your dear father, but the parting must always come for all of us. The blow is great—to us all, to the village—and to you more especially, but you must not allow it to interfere with your future interests.”