d her flight.

"Come back!" he cried hoarsely.

She heard a roar and saw a flashing of lights and fled across the line
just as an express train came flying northward. It missed her by inches,
and the force of the wind threw her to the ground. She scrambled up,
stumbled across the remaining rails, and, reaching the gate opposite,
fled down the dark road She had gained just that much time which the
train took in passing. She ran blindly along the dark road, slipping and
stumbling in the mud, and she heard her pursuer squelching through the
mud in the rear.

The wind flew her hair awry, the rain beat down upon her face, but she
stumbled on. Suddenly she slipped and fell, and as she struggled to her
feet the heavy hand of her pursuer fell upon her shoulder, and she
screamed aloud.

"None of that," said the voice, and his hand covered her mouth.

At that moment a bright light enveloped the two, a light so intensely,
dazzlingly white, so unexpected that it hit the girl almost like a
blow. It came from somewhere not two yards away, and the man released
his hold upon the girl and stared at the light.

"Hello!" said a voice from the darkness. "What's the game?"

She was behind the man, and could not see his face. All that she knew
was that here was help, unexpected, Heaven sent, and she strove to
recover her breath and her speech.

"It's all right," growled the man. "She's a lunatic and I'm taking her
to the asylum."

Suddenly the light was pushed forward to the man's face, and a heavy
hand was laid upon his shoulder.

"You are, are you?" said the other. "Well, I am going to take you to a
lunatic asylum, Sergeant Smith or Crawley or whatever your name is. You
know me; my name's Wiseman."

For a moment the man stood as though petrified, and then, with a sudden
jerk, he wrenched his hand free and sprang at the policeman with a wild
yell of rage, and in a second both men were rolling over in the
darkness. Constable Wiseman was no child, but he had lost his initial
advantage, and by the time he got to his feet and had found his electric
torch Crawley had vanished.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN CALLED "MERRILL"

"If Wiseman did not think you were a murderer, I should regard him as an
intelligent being," said Saul Arthur Mann.

"Have they found Crawley?" asked Frank.

"No, he got away. The chauffeur and the car were hired from a West End
garage, with this story of a lunatic who had to be removed to an asylum,
an