eam of cunning passion.

"Certainly," he said, rising from his chair. "You've had a tiring
journey. I ought to have thought of that before."

He took the candle from the table and lit it, and the fingers that held
the match trembled.

"We needn't trouble Marx," he explained. "That beast's in his vacuum by
this time."

III

They crossed the hall and began to ascend the carpetless wooden stairs.
They were in the well of the house and the air cut like ice. Garvey,
the flickering candle in his hand throwing his face into strong outline,
led the way across the first landing and opened a door near the mouth of
a dark passage. A pleasant room greeted the visitor's eyes, and he
rapidly took in its points while his host walked over and lit two
candles that stood on a table at the foot of the bed. A fire burned
brightly in the grate. There were two windows, opening like doors, in
the wall opposite, and a high canopied bed occupied most of the space on
the right. Panelling ran all round the room reaching nearly to the
ceiling and gave a warm and cosy appearance to the whole; while the
portraits that stood in alternate panels suggested somehow the
atmosphere of an old country house in England. Shorthouse was agreeably
surprised.

"I hope you'll find everything you need," Garvey was saying in the
doorway. "If not, you have only to ring that bell by the fireplace. Marx
won't hear it of course, but it rings in my laboratory, where I spend
most of the night."

Then, with a brief good-night, he went out and shut the door after him.
The instant he was gone Mr. Sidebotham's private secretary did a
peculiar thing. He planted himself in the middle of the room with his
back to the door, and drawing the pistol swiftly from his hip pocket
levelled it across his left arm at the window. Standing motionless in
this position for thirty seconds he then suddenly swerved right round
and faced in the other direction, pointing his pistol straight at the
keyhole of the door. There followed immediately a sound of shuffling
outside and of steps retreating across the landing.

"On his knees at the keyhole," was the secretary's reflection. "Just as
I thought. But he didn't expect to look down the barrel of a pistol and
it made him jump a little."

As soon as the steps had gone downstairs and died away across the hall,
Shorthouse went over and locked the door, stuffing a piece of crumpled
paper into the second keyhole which he saw immediately