st my grip of the situation.
One--crawled ... it fastened on my hand ... a hairy, many-limbed
horror.... Oh, my God! another is touching...."

"Rob! Rob! Keep your nerve, boy! Do you hear?"

"Yes--yes--" faintly.

"_Pray_, my boy--pray for strength, and it will come to you! You
_must_ hold out for another ten minutes. Ten minutes--do you
understand?"

"Yes! yes!--Merciful God!--if you can help me, do it, sir, or--"

"Hold out, boy! In _ten minutes_ you'll have won."

Dr. Cairn hung up the receiver, raced from the library, and grabbing a
cap from the rack in the hall, ran down the steps and bounded into the
waiting car, shouting an address to the man.

Piccadilly was gay with supper-bound theatre crowds when he leapt out
and ran into the hall-way which had been the scene of Robert's meeting
with Myra Duquesne. Dr. Cairn ran past the lift doors and went up the
stairs three steps at a time. He pressed his finger to the bell-push
beside Antony Ferrara's door and held it there until the door opened
and a dusky face appeared in the opening.

The visitor thrust his way in, past the white-clad man holding out his
arms to detain him.

"Not at home, _effendim_--"

Dr. Cairn shot out a sinewy hand, grabbed the man--he was a tall
_fellahin_--by the shoulder, and sent him spinning across the mosaic
floor of the _mandarah_. The air was heavy with the perfume of
ambergris.

Wasting no word upon the reeling man, Dr. Cairn stepped to the
doorway. He jerked the drapery aside and found himself in a dark
corridor. From his son's description of the chambers he had no
difficulty in recognising the door of the study.

He turned the handle--the door proved to be unlocked--and entered the
darkened room.

In the grate a huge fire glowed redly; the temperature of the place
was almost unbearable. On the table the light from the silver lamp
shed a patch of radiance, but the rest of the study was veiled in
shadow.

A black-robed figure was seated in a high-backed, carved chair; one
corner of the cowl-like garment was thrown across the table. Half
rising, the figure turned--and, an evil apparition in the glow from
the fire, Antony Ferrara faced the intruder.

Dr. Cairn walked forward, until he stood over the other.

"Uncover what you have on the table," he said succinctly.

Ferrara's strange eyes were uplifted to the speaker's with an
expression in their depths which, in the Middle Ages, alone would have
sent a man to the stak