the Star of Poland, Des, I
fear the worst for Barbara Mackwayte. Come in!"

The corporal stood, saluting, at the door.

"Mr. Matthews on the telephone, sir!"

Francis hurried away, leaving Desmond to his thoughts, which were
not of the most agreeable. Had he been wrong in thinking
Nur-el-Din a victim? Was he, after all, nothing but a credulous
fool who had been hoodwinked by a pretty woman's play-acting? And
had he sacrificed Barbara Mackwayte to his obstinacy and his
credulousness?

Francis burst suddenly into the room.

"Des," he cried, "they've found Miss Mackwayte's hat on the floor
of the tap-room... it is stained with blood..."

Desmond felt himself growing pale:

"And the girl herself," he asked thickly, "what of her?"

Francis shook his head.

"Vanished," he replied gravely. "Vanished utterly.
Desmond," he added, "we must go over to the Dyke Inn at once!"

CHAPTER XXI. THE BLACK VELVET TOQUE

Across Morsted Fen the day was breaking red and sullen. The
brimming dykes, fringed with bare pollards, and the long sheets
of water spread out across the lush meadows, threw back the fiery
radiance of the sky from their gleaming surface. The tall
poplars about the Dyke Inn stood out hard and clear in the ruddy
light; beyond them the fen, stretched away to the flaming horizon
gloomy and flat and desolate, with nothing higher than the
stunted pollards visible against the lurid background.

Upon the absolute silence of the scene there presently broke the
steady humming of a car. A great light, paled by the dawn, came
bobbing and sweeping, along the road that skirted the fen's edge.
A big open car drew up by the track and branched, off to the inn.
Its four occupants consulted together for an instant and then
alighted. Three of them were in plain clothes; the other was a
soldier. The driver was also in khaki.

"They're astir, Mr. Matthews," said one, of the plain clothes
men, pointing towards the house, "see, there's a light in the
inn!"

They followed the direction of his finger and saw a beam of
yellow light gleaming from among the trees.

"Get your guns out, boys!" said Matthews. "Give them a chance to
put their hands up, and if they don't obey, shoot!"

Very swiftly but very quietly, the four men picked their way over
the miry track to the little bridge leading to the yard in front
of the inn. The light they had remarked shone from the inn door,
a feeble, flickering light as of an expiring candle