ex-convict. Measured it, perhaps,
unconsciously, by his own standards of behavior. He had done things in
his time that would have made a self-respecting burglar blush.

There was a third possibility. The Monk. Simon tried to shake off
that thought. There was no sense in it. Queer how anything like that
masquerader's mischief-making could get under a sensible man's
skin--dig its way into his brain until it became an obsession! Suppose
he _had_ set fire to the tannery--was that any reason to believe he had
proceeded to further activities the same night? There was not a shred
of proof connecting him with the burglary.

He yielded to the fascination that the scrap of brown paper was
beginning to exercise over him and drew it from the pigeonhole. He
opened it and let his eye travel over the illiterate text to the threat
at the end that was already known to him by heart: "Take heed to thy
ways and mend them, lest thou be destroyed by the thunderbolts of
wrath!" Then he started violently in his chair, for he had come upon
the very proof he had thought lacking.

Beneath the last line of the message a few words had been scrawled with
a blunt, blue crayon and then deeply underscored for emphasis. He
stared at them, his face flushing and paling by turns, his lips
soundlessly shaping the ill-formed characters.

"_Behold, the bolts are loosed!_"

_IX: Simon Seeks Advice_

The discovery that his unknown enemy after first firing the tannery had
then rounded off a perfect evening by burglarizing his house threw
Simon Varr into a state of mental confusion. Here was a saturnalia of
crime condensed into the space of a few hours. And the man's audacity
was no less bewildering than his swift efficiency! Who, in this
hitherto quiet township of Hambleton, had suddenly developed a brand of
vicious courage that nerved him to commit arson and burglary? Simon
reviewed an imposing procession of possible suspects until his brain
wearied, and his wits, seeking vainly for light, were hopelessly at
fault in a fog of conjecture.

It was nearly three o'clock before he laid an aching head on his
pillow, it was nearly five before sleep came to him, but he was up at
his usual hour and downstairs in his study by eight. Physically he was
still tired, but the brief spell of slumber had at least rested his
brain and cleared it against the problems of a new day.

However undeserving he might be of sympathy, mere humanity would
su