mpts to make him talk
about the fellow. Burke is repulsive to her--for which you can't blame
her--and her curiosity over a man like him and a man like her father
having anything in common is quite natural. It is odd, you know.

"That's not what I intended saying, though." He paused and eyed me
keenly an instant. "If anything turns up that drags Mr. Fluette into
this business, you will find that Burke's the one who has tangled him.
Watch Burke."

Then the heavy steel door clanged to between us.

CHAPTER XVIII

A FIGHT IN THE DARK

After the cell door closed upon Royal Maillot I returned at once to the
house of tragedy, whose evil genius was promising to play havoc with
the lives of so many of the living; and as I approached the bleak,
austere old mansion something in its silent and inanimate exterior
seemed to repulse my advance up the gravel walk. My steps lagged, and
at last I drew to a halt.

Cold and clear and snappy as the day was, still there was something
oppressive in the air that hung about the house of death. I looked at
the lifeless windows. Staring vacantly, utterly expressionless of the
swift-moving tragic drama that had been enacted behind them, failing to
foreshadow what was yet to transpire here, they all at once brought
forcibly to my mind Alexander Burke. Thus did his eyes hide, instead
of disclose, the workings within.

That the mind of this man was secret and evil I could now no longer
doubt. Felix Page had been a powerful man, physically and mentally;
yet Alexander Burke, sly and impassive, soft-spoken and soft-footed,
ever alert and observant and burrowing, like a mole, in darkness, had
undermined him, and--the conviction grew--had brought about his cruel
death.

In what way? What far-reaching machination was he so laboriously
evolving? What snare was he casting unseen to bring down in ruin the
lives of others? And why? Coward that he was, had he at no time
worked in the broad light of day?

An unwelcome sense of depression was slowly weighing me down. It was
as if the silent house were haunted. At the time, I was convinced that
I was merely making a hodge-podge of the hundred and one clews that had
come to my hands, though now I know that the whole vast scheme was
gradually taking shape in my mind. I was bewildered by the wide
diversity of the opposed interests, left powerless by failure to light
upon a sure point of common interest defining the attitudes of the
d