ril in
that--immense, uncalculated peril, but the prior and immediate peril,
the peril of discovery in the very accomplishment of theft, was by this
act averted.

She stooped over, her eyes fixed on the sprawling body and with her free
hand closed the door of the safe. Then she crossed the room, put the
pistol down on the floor near the dead man's hand and went out.

She went swiftly down the stairway and paused a moment at the door to
look out. The street was empty. She hurried away.

She met no one. A cab in the distance was appearing. She hailed it as
from a cross street and returned to Regent. It was characteristic of the
woman that her mind dwelt upon the spoil she carried rather than upon
the act she had done.

She puzzled at the water color. How could these things be flowers?

Bramwell Winton was a biologist; he would not be concerned with flowers.
And Sir Godfrey Halleck and his son Tony, the big game hunter, were
not men to bother themselves with blossoms. Sir Godfrey, as she now
remembered vaguely, had, like his dead son, been a keen sportsman in his
youth; his country house was full of trophies.

She carried buttoned in the bosom of her jacket something that these men
valued. But, what was it? Well, at any rate it was something that would
mean fame and fortune to the one who should bring it out of Africa. That
one would now be Hecklemeir, and she should have her share of the spoil.

Lady Muriel found the drawing-room of her former employer in some
confusion; rugs were rolled up, bronzes were being packed. But in the
disorder of it the proprietor was imperturbable. He merely elevated his
eyebrows at her reappearance. She went instantly to the point.

"Hecklemeir," she said, "how would you like to have a definite objective
in your explorations?"

The man looked at her keenly.

"What do you mean precisely?" he replied.

"I mean," she continued, "something that would bring one fame and
fortune if one found it." And she added, as a bit of lure, "You remember
the gold plates Hector Bartlett dug up in Syria?"

He came over closer to her; his little eyes narrowed.

"What have you got?" he said.

His facetious manner--that vulgar persons imagine to be
distinguished--was gone out of him. He was direct and simple.

She replied with no attempt at subterfuge.

"I've got a map of a route to some sort of treasure--I don't know
what--It's in the Karamajo Mountains in the French Congo; a map to it
and a wa