th his
dressing, his heart sick. What if Collins had met with the same fate
as Dacre Wynne? What were those fiendish flames, anyhow, that men
disappeared completely, leaving neither sight nor sound? Surely there
was some brain clever enough to probe the mystery of them.

"If Collins doesn't turn up this morning," he told himself as he shaved
with a very unsteady hand, "I'll go straight up to London by the twelve
o'clock train and straight to Scotland Yard. But I'll find him--damn
it, I'll find him."

But no trace of James Collins could be found. He was gone--completely. No
one had seen him, no one but Borkins had known of his probable journey
across the Fens at night-time, and Borkins excused himself upon the plea
that Collins hadn't actually _said_ he was going that way. He had simply
vanished as Dacre Wynne had vanished, as Will Myers and all that long
list of others had vanished. Eaten up by the flames--and in Twentieth
Century England! But the fact remained. Dacre Wynne had disappeared, and
now James Collins had followed him. And a new flame shone among the
others, a newer, brighter flame than any before. Merriton saw it himself,
that was the devilish part of it. His own eyes had seen the thing appear,
just as he had seen it upon the night when Dacre Wynne had vanished. But
he didn't shoot at it this time. Instead, he packed a small bag, ran over
and said good-bye to 'Toinette and told her he was going to have a day in
town, but told her nothing else. Then he took the twelve o'clock train to
town. A taxi whisked him to Scotland Yard.

CHAPTER X

--AND THE LADY

And this was the extraordinary chain of events which brought young
Merriton into Mr. Narkom's office that day while Cleek was sitting there,
and on being introduced as "Mr. Headland" heard the story from Sir
Nigel's lips.

As he came to the last "And no trace of either body has ever been found,"
Cleek suddenly switched round in his chair and exclaimed:

"An extraordinary rigmarole altogether!" Meeting Merriton's astonished
eyes with his own keen ones, he went on: "The flames, of course, are a
plant of some sort. That goes without saying. But the thing to find out
is what they're there for to hide. When you've discovered that, you'll
have got half way to the truth, and the rest will follow as a matter of
course.... What's that, Mr. Narkom? Yes, I'll take the case, Sir Nigel.
My name's Cleek--Hamilton Cleek, at your service. Now let's hear the