white lips were moving in perfect synchronism, as he counted
the seconds and ticks of the clock. Shirley, never so acute, cudgeled
his mind for some devise by which he might overcame the other. It was
hopeless. At last, just as he knew the inevitable second was almost
completed, a faint rustling came from the other side of the iron door.
Warren's face brightened with hope. With a nerve-racking rasp, the iron
bar on the other side was raised: it was a torturing delay as the two
waited!

The door slowly opened. After a harrowing pause a revolver muzzle slid
gently through the crack, and a woman's voice murmured softly: "Drop the
gun!"

It was Helene Marigold!

Warren's ashen face changed to purple hue, his hand trembled just
enough to incite Shirley to a desperate chance. As the criminal drew the
trigger with a spasmodic jerk, Shirley was dropping to the floor, whence
he pushed himself forward with a froglike leap, as he straightened out
the great muscles.

Together they rolled in a frenzied struggle.

"Run back, Helene. The clock will explode!" cried Shirley, desperately.
Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical
arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and
her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had
she torn the wire, as a man would have done, the dreaded explosion would
have ended it all.

"We're coming!"

It was the voice of Pat Cleary from the passageway. He rushed through
the subterranean passage, followed by several men, with Dick Holloway
excitedly in their train. After a titanic struggle, with the man baffled
in this maddening moment of ruined triumph, they handcuffed him.

Shirley led Helene into the front compartment before she could observe
the horror stamped upon the face of the murdered rogue.

The girl turned her glorious eyes to his, reached forth her hands, and
then the eternal feminine conquered as she trembled unsteadily and sank
into his arms.

"Break down the doors, Cleary. Out here, to the street. Pull off the
hands of that clock--it's a lyddite bomb!" cried Shirley, excitedly.

One of the men used the table with clattering effect. The iron door of
the front room gave way, and Shirley carried Helene up the ladder, to
the main floor of the old garage. She seemed a sleeping lily--so pale,
so fragile, so fragrant in her colorless beauty. He had never seen her
so before! For an instant a great terror pierced him: sh