ion of the message to slip past and continue to the
wire's end--the telegraph office."

"Good lud! Then in that case----"

"In that case, Mr. Narkom, there can be no shadow of a doubt that
that message was sent by somebody in this house--and over the
dockyard's own private wire."

"But how, Mr. Cleek--in the name of all that is wonderful, how?"

"Ah, that is the point, Sir Charles. I think we need not go into
the matter of who is at the bottom of the whole affair, but confine
ourselves to the business of discovering how the thing was done,
and how much information has already gone out to the enemy. I fancy
we may set our minds at rest upon one point, however, namely, the
identity of the person whose hand supplied the drawing found upon
the body of the drowned man. That hand was a woman's; that woman, I
feel safe in saying, was Sophie Borovonski, professionally known
to the people of the underworld as 'La Tarantula.'"

"I never heard of her, Mr. Cleek. Who is she?"

"Probably the most beautiful, unscrupulous, reckless, dare-devil
spy in all Europe, Sir Charles. She is a Russian by birth, but owns
allegiance to no country and to no crown. Together with her depraved
brother Boris, and her equally desperate paramour, Nicolo Ferrand,
she forms one of the trio of paid bravos who for years have been at
the beck and call of any nation despicable enough to employ them;
always ready for any piece of treachery or dirty work, so long as
their price is paid--as cunning as serpents, as slippery as eels, as
clever as the devil himself, and as patient. We shall not go far
astray, gentlemen, if we assert that the lady's latest disguise was
that of Miss Greta Hilmann."

"Good God! Young Beachman's fiancee?"

"Exactly, Sir Charles. I should not be able to identify her from a
photograph were one obtainable, which I doubt--she is far too clever
for that sort of thing--but the evidence is conclusive enough to
satisfy me, at least, of the lady's identity."

"But how--how?"

"Mr. Narkom will tell you, Sir Charles, that from our time of
starting this morning to our arrival here we made but one stop. That
stop was at the Portsmouth mortuary before we appeared at this
house. I wished to see the body of the man who was drowned. I have no
hesitation, Sir Charles, in declaring that that man's name is
not, and never was, Axel von Ziegelmundt. The body is that of
Nicolo Ferrand, 'La Tarantula's' clever lover. The inference is
obvious. 'M