the moment that the wires must have fused, but it turned out
that there was nothing the matter with them--only that the current
had been interrupted for a bit--for the lights winked on again as
suddenly as they had winked out."

"By Jupiter!" Cleek cracked out the two words like the snapping of a
whip lash, then quickly turned round on his heel and looked straight
and intently at the telegraph operator.

"Speak up--quick!" he said in the sharp staccato of excitement. "I am
told that when that crash came and the diverted message began there
was a force that almost knocked you off your stool. Is that true?"

"Yes, sir," the man replied, "perfectly true. It was something
terrific. The Lord only knows what it would have been if I'd been
touching the instrument."

"You'd have been as dead as Julius Caesar!" flung back Cleek. "No
wonder she cut away to see what was wrong, the vixen! No wonder the
lights went out! Mr. Narkom, the limousine--quick! Come along, Sir
Charles; come along, Mr. Beachman--come along at once!"

"Where, Mr. Cleek--where?"

"To the top floor of the house next door to the Ocean Billow Hotel,
Sir Charles, to see 'Miss Greta Hilmann's' precious pensioners,"
he made answer, rather excitedly. "Unless I am wofully mistaken,
gentlemen, one part of this little riddle is already solved, and
the very elements have conspired to protect England to become her
foeman's executioner."

He was not mistaken--not in any point with regard to that house and
the part it had played in this peculiar case--for, when they visited
it and demanded in the name of the law the right to enter and to
interview "the bedridden woman and the crippled girl who occupied the
top floor," they were met with the announcement that no such persons
dwelt there, nor had ever done so.

"It is let to an invalid, it is true," the landlady, a motherly,
unsuspecting old soul, told them when they made the demand. "But
it is a gentleman, not a lady. A professional gentleman, I
believe--artist or sculptor, something of that sort--and never until
last night has anybody been with him but his niece, who makes
occasional calls. Last night, however, a nephew came--just for a
moment; indeed, it seemed to me that he had no more than gone
upstairs before he came down again and went out. Pardon? No,
nobody has called to-day, neither has the gentleman left his room.
But he often sleeps until late."

He was sleeping forever this time. For when they came t