llowed her gaze. Above us, circling the whole
hall, there ran a gallery from which at a distance of some fifteen feet
from where we stood a wide stone staircase descended; and half-way down
this, as motionless as statues, as indistinct as shadows, I saw four men
in the uniform of officers of France.

For an uncanny moment I wondered whether they were specters. For a
stupid one, I thought they might be people whom the girl had come here
to meet. Still, if they were, she wouldn't be looking at them in this
paralyzed fashion. I could not see them plainly,--but they must be the
men from Bleau.

"Well, Mr. Bayne," the foremost was asking, "did you think we had
deserted you? Not a bit of it! We came on ahead and rang up the old
woman there and commandeered her keys. We've been killing time here for
a good half hour, waiting for you. You must have had tire trouble. And
you don't seem very pleased to see us now that you've come--eh, what?"

At Bleau the previous night, I was recalling dazedly, there had been
only three men wearing the horizon blue. Who was this fourth figure, who
knew my name and spoke such colloquial English? I raised my candle as
high as possible and scanned him. Then I stood transfixed.

"Van Blarcom!" I gasped. "And in a uniform, by all that's holy!"

He grinned.

"No. You haven't got that quite right," he told me. "What's the use
keeping up the game now that we're here, all friends together? My name
isn't Van Blarcom. It's Franz von Blenheim, Mr. Bayne."

CHAPTER XX

INTRODUCING HERR FRANZ VON BLENHEIM

The words of Franz von Blenheim seemed to fill the hall and reecho
from the walls and arches, deafening me, leaving me stunned as if by
an earthquake or by a flash of lightning from clear skies. Yet I never
though of doubting them. Comatose as my state was, slowly as my brain
was working, I recognized vaguely how many features of the mystery, both
past and present, these words explained.

It was odd, but never once had it occurred to me that Van Blarcom might
be a German. He himself, I began to realize, had taken care of that.
With considerable acumen he had filled every one of our brief interviews
with vigorous denunciations of somebody else, dark hints as to intrigues
that surrounded me and might enmesh me, and solemn warnings and prudent
counsels, which had brilliantly served his turn. He had kept me so busy
suspecting Miss Falconer--at the thought I could have beaten my head
against the