another, but otherwise appeared as
indifferent as a graven image. Increasingly Furniss kept his eye to the
keyhole. Suddenly a jerk of his arm brought the others to attention.
Good emptied his pipe and took up his position by the other door. The
photographer crushed out his cigarette on his heel and examined, for the
hundredth time, the mechanism of his flash pistol.

For a little while they stood tense and watchful, but when nothing
happened, they relaxed a trifle. The photographer lit another cigarette.
Good sat down, but at a glare from the reporter, stood up again. The
muffled sound of voices came to them from the other room, occasionally
rising in pitch, as if in argument, though no words could be
distinguished.

They remained thus for what seemed an eternity. Once Good looked at his
watch. It was half past nine. The voices still rose and fell on the
other side of the door. Once Sato yawned, and changed his flash pistol
from one hand to the other. Suddenly Furniss turned from the keyhole,
his eyes ablaze, and his lips silently formed the warning. Good, his
heart thumping uncontrollably, the sense of something terrible
impending, more acute than ever, put his hand on the doorknob. The
photographer fingered his shutter release....

Good never afterward could tell exactly how it all happened. He never
could see in his mind's eye the signal from Furniss. Yet he must have
seen it, else the door would never have been opened.

All he knew at the moment, and all he could ever remember, was a sudden
blinding flash of light, with a dull roar, and he was staring past a
roomful of men straight into the eyes of--Judge Wolcott. They were wide
with recognition and helpless terror.

Then he was conscious of a rush of scurrying feet, and a large man
pushing over a chair in front--making for him.

It flashed over him that this was Hennessy, acting as if the whole thing
had been planned and rehearsed. He laughed unconsciously, as if in a
dream. It _had_ been rehearsed. As the big man reached the threshold,
his eyes flaming, his nostrils dilated, his jaw open, like some mad
bull, Good's arm straightened mechanically. The blazing eyes and red
nostrils vanished, and his knuckles hurt him vaguely. Then the lights
went out in the other room, and he made for the door. He felt sick to
his stomach when he reached the street, and something seemed to press on
his temples till he wanted to scream.

But the horrible feeling of dread had