besides, the errand would take him partly on his way. He opened the door
of the landaulet and stepped in, and as the door swung to behind him, he
found he was not alone in the car.

"What is the----" he began, when a powerful hand gripped his throat, and
he was swung backward on the padded seat as the car moved slowly forward
and, gathering speed as it went, flew along the Thames Embankment with
its prisoner.

CHAPTER XV

In the rectory at Great Bradley, Lady Constance Dex arose from a
sleepless night to confront her placid brother at the breakfast table.
The Reverend Jeremiah Bangley, a stout and easy man, who spent as much
of his time in London as in his rectory, was frankly nonplussed by the
apparition. He was one of those men, common enough, who accept the most
extraordinary happenings as being part of life's normal round. An
earthquake in Little Bradley which swallowed up his church and the major
portion of his congregation would not have interested him any more than
the budding of the trees, or a sudden arrival of flower life in his big
walled garden. Now, however, he was obviously astonished.

"What brings you to breakfast, Constance?" he asked. "I have not seen
you at this table for many years."

"I could not sleep," she said, as she helped herself at the sideboard
to a crisp morsel of bacon. "I think I will take my writing pad to Moor
Cottage."

He pursed his lips, this easy going rector of Little Bradley.

"I have always thought," he said, "that Moor Cottage was not the most
desirable gift the late Mr. Farrington could have made to you." He
paused, to allow her a rejoinder, but as she made no reply, he went on:
"It is isolated, standing on the edge of the moor, away from the
ordinary track of people. I am always scared, my dear Constance, that
one of these days you will have some wretched tramp, or a person of the
criminal classes, causing you a great deal of distress and no little
inconvenience."

There was much of truth in what he said. Moor Cottage, a pretty little
one-storied dwelling, had been built by the owner of the Secret House at
the same time that the house itself had been erected. It was intended,
so the builder said, to serve the purpose of a summer house, and
certainly it offered seclusion, for it was placed on the edge of the
moor, approached by a by-road which was scarcely ever traversed, since
Bradley mines had been worked out and abandoned.

Many years ago when the earth be