vening's performance.

"A part of what?" Peggy was inquiring.

"Oh, another joke of the Mongolian smugglers," he explained.

There was a sudden and astounding explosion in the midst of them. The
flame of a revolver bathed the whole room in reddish-yellow for an
instant. Smoke was rising, the pungent, pale-blue, nitrous smoke of
so-called smokeless powder. Anthony Andover had arisen, had delivered
his shot at the waving curtain.

Peter gave a grunt of disapproval. "Why did you do that----"

"Look!"

The candle directly above the curtains had flickered out; in fact, on
closer examination Peter discovered that the candle had been split in
crude halves, one of the white fragments lying on the rug not far from
the incense burner. This proved one point conclusively. Anthony
Andover had put real bullets, not blank cartridges, into the six
chambers of his revolver. He had reseated himself calmly beside Helen,
who was staring at him with eyes like pools.

Peggy found her voice first. "Gracious! Why did you do that? It was
only in fun--that dagger, I mean. Why, you might have killed somebody!"

Anthony shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not so sure about that."

"This is really a most dangerous spot," added the Princess Meng Da
Tlang in a mysterious voice. But she was looking at Peter with
deliberate meaning.

He accepted what he supposed was intended to be a cue, crossed to the
far side of the room, and approached the curtains prudently. He drew
the nearest one back inch by inch until the wall of the corridor was
given back to them blankly. So far it was quite empty.

Dropping his hand leisurely into his coat-pocket, he sauntered into the
hall. As he dropped the curtains behind him, glancing swiftly up and
down the apparently deserted hallway, he heard the familiar sound again
of a gently closed door.

The sound seemed to originate from the direction of the street. He
looked about for the old watchman, and he nearly stumbled over him in
the half-darkness as he approached.

Peter struck a match, and a gasp of horror came from his lips. The man
was dead--stabbed!

Was this killing a part of an elaborate plan? He would not have
permitted himself to walk with such apparent innocence into a snare if
he had not relied upon the word of that band. His experience had been
that their code was a peculiar one whose foundation was the word of
honor. For the first time that evening he began to regret a little h