CKED OUT
LVI. WHITE FANGS
LVII. HIDE AND SEEK

THE CRIMSON BLIND.

CHAPTER I

"WHO SPEAKS?"

David Steel dropped his eyes from the mirror and shuddered as a man who
sees his own soul bared for the first time. And yet the mirror was in
itself a thing of artistic beauty--engraved Florentine glass in a frame
of deep old Flemish oak. The novelist had purchased it in Bruges, and now
it stood as a joy and a thing of beauty against the full red wall over
the fireplace. And Steel had glanced at himself therein and seen murder
in his eyes.

He dropped into a chair with a groan for his own helplessness. Men have
done that kind of thing before when the cartridges are all gone and the
bayonets are twisted and broken and the brown waves of the foe come
snarling over the breastworks. And then they die doggedly with the stones
in their hands, and cursing the tardy supports that brought this black
shame upon them.

But Steel's was ruin of another kind. The man was a fighter to his
finger-tips. He had dogged determination and splendid physical courage;
he had gradually thrust his way into the front rank of living novelists,
though the taste of poverty was still bitter in his mouth. And how good
success was now that it had come!

People envied him. Well, that was all in the sweets of the victory. They
praised his blue china, they lingered before his Oriental dishes and the
choice pictures on the panelled walls. The whole thing was still a
constant pleasure to Steel's artistic mind. The dark walls, the old oak
and silver, the red shades, and the high artistic fittings soothed him
and pleased him, and played upon his tender imagination. And behind there
was a study, filled with books and engravings, and beyond that again a
conservatory, filled with the choicest blossoms. Steel could work with
the passion flowers above his head and the tender grace of the tropical
ferns about him, and he could reach his left hand for his telephone and
call Fleet Street to his ear.

It was all unique, delightful, the dream of an artistic soul realised.
Three years before David Steel had worked in an attic at a bare deal
table, and his mother had L3 per week to pay for everything. Usually
there was balm in this recollection.

But not to-night, Heaven help him, not to-night! Little grinning demons
were dancing on the oak cornices, there were mocking lights gleaming from
Cellini tankards that Steel had given far too much mo