en doorway her voice tore anxiously,
summoning a house physician.

Garth's feeling of a desperate helplessness increased. Before him was
the knowledge that would safeguard Alsop and his friends, that would
insure Garth's own life, that would destroy, perhaps, a dangerous
foreign influence, and the man couldn't speak.

At last the nurse's calls seemed to seep through the bandage into that
tortured brain, suggesting the necessity for caution. In a whisper
coherent words came again from the trembling lips.

"For God's sake, don't look behind the white veil! No! No! I have.
That's madness!"

The doctor slipped in and hurried to the bedside. In response to his
touch Brown lay down.

"Don't dope him," Garth begged. "That man knows things on which many
lives depend. He must tell them to me before night. When will he be able
to talk straight?"

The doctor smiled tolerantly.

"You don't seem to understand. A frightful fracture at the base of the
brain. He seems inclined to be quiet enough now."

The doctor turned away. Garth followed him to the door, urging him to
use his skill to make Brown talk. The nurse had remained by the bed.
Garth heard her sharp cry through his own pleading. The sound puzzled
him because it was a trifle strangled. The doctor, however, turned like
a flash and hurried back to the bed. Garth looked. The nurse bent over
the bandaged head. The doctor fumbled quickly beneath the bed clothes.
He arose, glanced at Garth, and spread his hands. Garth picked at his
hat, unwilling to believe.

"You mean," he whispered, "that he's--gone?"

The doctor nodded. The nurse sobbed once. Garth had not noticed how
young her face was.

* * * * * *

The block where the murdered man had been found was flanked by long rows
of similar houses. Its cobblestones, unfriendly to traffic, made it an
ideal place for the brutal deception which had been attempted.

Opposite the spot where Brown had been picked up Garth paused and looked
curiously across the street. The dreary house line was broken there by a
number of basement and first-story shops. His eyes, alert for the
unusual, had found it. A basement window displayed intricately patterned
rugs, lamps of the Orient, unfamiliar and barbaric jewelry. The fact
that he had not noticed the window sooner testified to a significant
discretion in its arrangement. It was, he fancied, designed less to
attract curiosity than to satisfy it once it