ched it from her and looked at the title.

"'A Friend in Need,'" he read. "By Stanford Beale--by Stanford Beale,"
he repeated, frowning. "I didn't know your husband wrote books?"

She made no reply. He turned back the cover and read the title page.

"But this is 'Smiles's Self Help,'" he said.

"It's the same thing," she replied.

He turned another page or two, then stopped, for he had come to a place
where the centre of the book had been cut right out. The leaves had been
glued together to disguise this fact, and what was apparently a book was
in reality a small box.

"What was in there?" he asked, springing to his feet.

"This," she said, "don't move, Dr. van Heerden!"

The little hand which held the Browning was firm and did not quiver.

"I don't think you are going to send your pigeons off this morning,
doctor," she said. "Stand back from the table." She leant over and
seized the little heap of papers and the watch. "I am going to shoot
you," she said steadily, "if you refuse to do as I tell you; because if
I don't shoot you, you will kill me."

His face had grown old and grey in the space of a few seconds. The white
hands he raised were shaking. He tried to speak but only a hoarse murmur
came. Then his face went blank. He stared at the pistol, then stretched
out his hands slowly toward it.

"Stand back!" she cried.

He jumped at her, and she pulled the trigger, but nothing happened, and
the next minute she was struggling in his arms. The man was hysterical
with fear and relief and was giggling and cursing in the same breath.
He wrenched the pistol from her hand and threw it on the table.

"You fool! You fool!" he shouted, "the safety-catch! You didn't put it
down!"

She could have wept with anger and mortification. Beale had put the
catch of the weapon at safety, not realizing that she did not understand
the mechanism of it, and van Heerden in one lightning glance had seen
his advantage.

"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall
suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your
husband something which he will not touch!"

He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed
"Bridgers!"

Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.

"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It
is----"

"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"

He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these
wa