ent was back with
the others.

"Quick--that fellow Locke is coming."

He was right. Locke had immediately quit Brent Rock and had come
directly to the chemist's in the hope of forestalling any further
attempt by Flint to inveigle Eva into dealing with him.

The door had been left ajar and, although he thought it strange, Locke
was without suspicion and entered the hallway. He called to his old
friend, but the dead lips could not answer and the emissaries would not.

Greatly alarmed now, Locke strode to the laboratory. For a moment he
stood as though petrified as the horrid scene burst upon his vision. He
ran to the chemist and knelt beside his battered body.

With a rush the emissaries darted from their hiding-place and were upon
him.

Although taken unawares, Locke was, in a measure, ready for them. One he
grabbed in a clever jiu-jitsu hold and sent him hurtling through the air
to crash in a heap in a far corner of the room. Leaping to his feet, he
beat another to the floor. The third villain was of tougher fiber. Up
and down the laboratory they battled, stumbling over broken furniture,
now falling to the floor, where they rolled over and over, first one,
then the other gaining the mastery, while the broken glass with which
the floor was littered cut their clothing to ribbons and bit into their
flesh.

Locke was slowly gaining the upper hand when the thug whom he had thrown
over his head recovered. The brute took the situation in at a glance,
saw his pal in trouble, and, sneaking treacherously behind Locke, dealt
him a terrific blow with the butt of a revolver. Locke dropped to the
floor as if pole-axed and lay still.

One of the thugs kicked him as he lay defenseless, and then, spying a
row of coat-hooks in an inner hallway, with fiendish ingenuity directed
the others who had joined him. They strung Locke up by his thumbs so
that he hung, half suspended, with his toes just off the floor.

As one of them searched him Locke was still unconscious. They found
nothing but a few bank-notes and the automatic revolver that Locke
always carried.

Slowly Locke regained his senses. The agony of his strained thumbs was
almost unbearable. But he was not the man to give up.

By this time two of the emissaries had gone, leaving one, who seated
himself quite close to Locke, where he was examining the revolver. With
the stoicism of an Indian, Locke manfully tried to evolve a plan by
which he might escape. Like a flash it