organization and that he was prepared, on terms, and with guaranteed government protection, to place all his knowledge at our disposal. He assured me that Orwin was a prisoner in New York, and that his (Sankey’s) safety being assured by you, he would indicate the exact spot.
I have an address to which to write, and it is evidently urgent. I shall be in New York tomorrow and will call upon you, if I may, at four o’clock.
What do you think we should do?
Very sincerely yours, sarah lakin.
Mark Hepburn laid the letter down upon the table.
“The description,” he said drily, “would fit James Richet as well as any man I know.”
Nayland Smith, watching him, smiled triumphantly.
“I am glad to hear you say so.” He declared. “You order this man’s arrest; he disappears. He is out to save his skin—”
“It may be.”
“If it is Richet, then Richet would be a valuable card to hold. It’s infuriating, Hepburn, to think that I missed grabbing the fellow to-night! My next regret is that our fair correspondent omits the address at which we can communicate with this ‘Julian Sankey.’ Does any other point in the letter strike you?”
“Yes,” said Hepburn slowly. “It’s undated. But my own sister, who is an honour graduate, rarely dates her letters. The other thing is the telephone.”
“The telephone is the all-important thing.”
Mark Hepburn turned and met the fixed gaze of Nayland Smith’s eyes. He nodded.
“I don’t like the disconnected telephone, Hepburn. I know the master schemer who is up against us . . . ! I am wondering if this information will ever come to hand . . . .”
A man who wore a plain yellow robe, in the loose sleeves of which his hands were concealed, sat at a large lacquered table in a small room. Some quality in the sound which penetrated through three windows, all of them slightly opened, suggested that this room was situated at a great height above a sleepless city.
Two of the walls were almost entirely occupied by bookcases; the lacquer table was set in the angle formed by these books, and upon it, in addition to neatly arranged documents, were a number of queer-looking instruments and appliances.
Also there was a porcelain bowl in which a carved pipe with a tiny bowl rested.
The room was very hot and the air laden with a peculiar aromatic smell. The man in the yellow robe lay back in a carved, padded chair; a black cap resembling a biretta crowned his massive skull. His immobile face resembled one of those ancient masterpieces of ivory mellowed in years of incense; a carving of Gautama Buddha—by one who disbelieved his doctrine. The eyes in this remarkable face had been closed; now, suddenly, they opened. They were green as burnished jade under moonlight.
The man in the yellow robe put a on pair of tinted spectacles and studied a square, illuminated screen which was one of the several unusual appointments of the table. . . . Upon this screen, in miniature, appeared a moving picture of the subterranean room where the seven-eyed goddess sat eternally watching. James Richet was talking to Lola Dumas.
The profound student of humanity seated at the lacquer table was cruelly just. He wished to study this man who, after doing good work, had seen fit to leave his ordered route and to visit the cousin of Orwin Prescott. Steps had been taken to check any possible consequences. But the fate of the one who had made these measures necessary hung now in the balance.
They stood close together, and although their figures appeared distant, but not so perhaps through the lenses of the glasses worn by the Chinaman, their voices sounded quite normal, as though they were speaking in the room in which he sat.
“Lola, I have the game in my hand.” Rcihet threw his left arm around the woman’s shoulders and drew her to him. “Don’t pretend. We’re in this thing together.”
Lola Dumas’ lithe body bent backward as he strove to reach her lips.
“You are quite mad,” she said breathlessly. “Because I was amused once, why should you think I am a fool?” She twisted, bent, and broke free, turning and facing him, her dark eyes blazing. “I can play, but when I work, I quit play. You are dreaming, my dear, if you think you can ever get control.”
“But I tell you I have the game in my hand!” The man, fists clenched, spoke tensely, passionately. “It is for you to say the word. Why should a newcomer, a stranger, take charge when you and I——”
“You young fool! Do you want to die so young?”
“I tell you, Lola,
A slender ivory hand, the fingernails long, pointed and highly burnished, moved across the lacquered table in that distant high room.
Six of the seven lights over curtained openings went out.
“What’s this?” muttered Richet. “What do we do now?”
He was inspired by his own vehemence; he felt capable of facing Satan in person.
“Go into the lighted alcove,” said the woman coldly. “The President is ready to interview you.”
Richet paused, fists still half clenched, stepped towards the light, then glanced back. Lola Dumas had gone. She was lost in the incense-haunted darkness . . . but one green eye of the goddess watched him out of the
