fist.

"You've been tampering with my servants, damn you!" he exclaimed.

"Well, they haven't been yours very long, have they?" Wingate
reminded him.

"So this is all part of a plot!" Dredlinton continued, with increasing
apprehension. "They are in your pay, are they? It was only this morning I
noticed all these new faces around me.--God help us!"

The words seemed to melt away from his lips. The door had been flung
open, and a queer little procession entered. First of all came Grant,
followed by a footman leading Peter Phipps by the arm. Phipps' hands were
tied together. A gag in the form of a respirator covered his mouth. Cords
which had apparently only just been unknotted were around each leg. He
had the expression, of a man completely dazed. After him came another of
the footmen leading Stanley Rees, who was in similar straits. The latter,
however, perhaps by reason of his longer detention, showed none of the
passivity of his companion. He struggled violently, even in the few yards
between the door and the centre of the room, Wingate motioned to a third
footman, who had followed behind.

"Pull out that round table," he directed. "Place three chairs around
it.--So!--Sit down, Phipps. Sit down, Rees."

They obeyed, Rees only after a further useless struggle. Dredlinton, who
had been speechless for the last few seconds, gazed with horror-stricken
eyes at the third chair. Wingate smiled at him grimly.

"That third chair, Dredlinton," he announced, "is for you."

The terrified man made an ineffectual dash for the door.

"You mean to make a prisoner of me in my own house?" he shouted, as he
found himself in the clutches of one of the footmen. "What fool's game
is this? You know you can't keep it up, Wingate. You'll be transported,
man. Come, confess it's a joke. Tell that man to take these damned
cords away."

"It is a joke," Wingate assured him gravely, "but it may need a very
peculiar sense of humour to appreciate it. However, you need not fear.
Your life is not threatened.--Now, Dickenson, the loaf."

The third man stepped back to the door and, from the hands of another
servant who was waiting there, took an ordinary cottage loaf of bread.
The three men now were seated around the table, bound to their chairs and
gagged. In the middle of the table, just beyond their reach, Wingate,
leaning over them, placed the loaf of bread.

"I am now," he announced, standing a little back, "going to tell Grant to
releas