any have you spoken, dilating upon this device, and publishing
abroad my secret?"

"I have spoken to no one, not even to Mr. Gryce. That shows my honesty
as nothing else can."

"You have kept my secret intact?"

"Entirely so, sir."

"So that no one, here or elsewhere, shares our knowledge of the new
points in this mechanism?"

"I say so, sir."

"Then if I should kill you," came in ferocious accents, "now--here--"

"You would be the only one to own that knowledge. But you won't kill
me."

"Why?"

"Need I go into reasons?"

"Why? I say."

"Because your conscience is already too heavily laden to bear the burden
of another unprovoked crime."

Brotherson, starting back, glared with open ferocity upon the man who
dared to face him with such an accusation.

"God! why didn't I shoot you on entrance!" he cried. "Your courage is
certainly colossal."

A fine smile, without even the hint of humour now, touched the daring
detective's lip. Brotherson's anger seemed to grow under it, and he
loudly repeated:

"It's more than colossal; it's abnormal and--" A moment's pause, then
with ironic pauses--"and quite unnecessary save as a matter of display,
unless you think you need it to sustain you through the ordeal you are
courting. You wish to help me finish and prepare for flight?"

"I sincerely do."

"You consider yourself competent?"

"I do."

Brotherson's eyes fell and he walked once to the extremity of the oval
flooring and back.

"Well, we will grant that. But that's not all that is necessary. My
requirements demand a companion in my first flight. Will you go up in
the car with me on Saturday night?"

A quick affirmative was on Sweetwater's lips but the glimpse which he
got of the speaker's face glowering upon him from the shadows into which
Brotherson had withdrawn, stopped its utterance, and the silence grew
heavy. Though it may not have lasted long by the clock, the instant of
breathless contemplation of each other's features across the intervening
space was of incalculable moment to Sweetwater, and, possibly, to
Brotherson. As drowning men are said to live over their whole history
between their first plunge and their final rise to light and air, so
through the mind of the detective rushed the memories of his past and
the fast fading glories of his future; and rebelling at the subtle peril
he saw in that sardonic eye, he vociferated an impulsive:

"No! I'll not--" and paused, caught by a new and irr