s to their questions are evasive.

Dodge is frantic. Suggestions that could come only from Lanier treachery
startle him. His worst fears are to be realized. Doubtless Pierre and
Paul have charged him with the Thames murders. Thoroughly convinced of
their perfidy, he sends for head of the police department, and confesses
all.

Like tactics have been employed with Pierre and Paul. Much disposed as
each feels to seek personal safety in charging guilt upon Dodge, neither
knows what the other has divulged. Natural secretiveness and craft make
each alertly suspicious. Neither Lanier suspects the other of double
dealing as to interests of either. Both take refuge in stoical silence.

Finally father and son are brought together in presence of police
officials, and jointly informed as to certain parts of the Dodge
confession. They look questioningly at each other, neither making any
reply. Both seem to see that this meeting was had to remove any
hesitation either may have felt, through ignorance of possible
admissions or denials of the other.

For days, varying tactics are employed with these astute criminals, but
all such fail to elicit from either even a response. At last this
inquisition ceases. One day Pierre and Paul Lanier were discharged.

Greatly mystified at this unexpected move, neither cares to press for
explanations.

Without arraignment upon any formal charge, William Dodge still chafes
in Calcutta prison.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT SURPRISE

For many weeks, journeying from camp on slope of the Himalayas, without
much to vary monotonous daily routine, the survey party arrives at
Calcutta. All are paid, and the expedition is disbanded.

To Oswald Langdon, choosing some congenial life pursuit now is a serious
problem. Liberal pay for service just ended places him beyond the
necessity of immediate employment. His faculties might find agreeable
exercise in the legal forum, but this seems interdicted by menacing
voices and spectral beckonings. Whichever way he turns there loom past
wraiths, restless as ghosts of unburied Grecian slain. These must find
soothing specific, ere he tastes elixir of life's destiny.

But how proceed to lay these menacing forms? What has been done to
ferret out this crime? Who is suspected? Has the body of Alice Webster
been discovered? Possibly the strange disappearances have ceased to
excite comment. Even Sir Donald Randolph and Esther may remember these
only as unpleasant