ss, and in
another moment he was in the Baron de Carjorac's presence.

"Oh, monsieur, God for ever bless you!" exclaimed the broken old man,
throwing himself on his knees before Cleek.

"Out with the light--out with the light!" exclaimed he, ducking
down suddenly. "Were you mad to keep it burning till I came,
with that"--pointing to a huge bay window opening upon a
balcony--"uncurtained and the grounds, no doubt, alive with spies?"

Miss Lorne sprang to the table where the baron's reading-lamp stood,
jerked the cord of the extinguisher, and darkness enveloped the room,
darkness tempered only by the faint gleams of the moon streaming over
the balcony, and through the panes of the uncurtained window.

Cleek, on his knees beside the kneeling baron, whipped a tiny electric
torch from his pocket, and, shielding its flare with his scooped hands,
flashed it upon the old man's face.

"Simple as rolling off a log--exactly like your pictures," he commented.
"I'll 'do' you as easily as I 'do' Clodoche--and I could 'do' him in the
dark from memory. Quick"--snicking off the light of the electric torch
and rising to his feet--"into your dressing-room, baron. I want that
suit of clothes; I want that ribbon, that cross--and I want them at
once. You're a bit thicker-set than me, but I've got my Clodoche rig on
underneath this, and it will fill out your coat admirably and make us as
like as two peas. Give me five minutes, Miss Lorne, and I promise you a
surprise."

He flashed out of sight with the baron as he ceased speaking; and Ailsa,
creeping to the window and peering cautiously out, was startled
presently by a voice at her elbow saying, in a tone of extreme
agitation: "Oh, mademoiselle, I fear, even yet I fear, that this Anglais
monsieur attempts too much, and that the papier he is gone for ever."

"Oh, no, baron, no!" she soothed, as she laid a solicitous hand upon
his arm. "Do believe in him; do have faith in him. Ah, if you only
knew--"

"Thanks. I reckon I shall pass muster!" interposed Cleek's voice; and it
was only then she realised. "You'll find the baron in the other room,
Miss Lorne, looking a little grotesque in that grey suit of mine. In
with you, quickly; go with him through the other door, and get below
before those fellows begin to stir. Get out of the house as quietly and
as expeditiously as you can. With God's help, I'll meet you at the Hotel
du Louvre in the morning, and put the missing fragment in the baron