the house with a cordon of soldiers London would be in an uproar. We want to avoid that, at all costs. I have been in communication with the Home Office, and am advised that, if we decide to put up with the inconvenience, it is better, and actually less risky, to hold out here than seek safety by flight. I understand that Scotland Yard is not losing an unnecessary minute, but there are obvious difficulties in the way of decisive action. It is considered worse than useless to effect isolated arrests, as these tend only to put the other members of the gang on their guard. The chief inspector tells me that he had some hope of being able to make a big haul tonight. The principal drawback is the language bar. Chinese interpreters are few and far between in London, and those who do exist—in the East End, for instance—have long since lost any useful acquaintance with events in their own country. This is a political matter, you understand, and must be fought out on political lines. Strange as it may sound in your ears, the cause of Chinese freedom is at issue in this very house. If Wong Li Fu could secure a list of names now locked in a bureau in my library the Constitutional party in China would perish forthwith for want of leaders. But he won't get it. Thanks to your brother, Mrs. Paxton, his deadliest attack failed yesterday. For today's accident we have ourselves to blame. We did not even suspect that his malignity would take the form of shooting the first person who chanced to look out of a window."
He had halted at the top of the broad staircase while making that stirring declaration of war.
"Pardon my outspokenness," he said, sinking his voice to a lower tone. "I don't want to frighten my wife on my own account. She believes now that the police are hunting these scoundrels in every hole and corner of London. In a sense, that is true, but we never know the moment some extraordinary action may be taken, so we remain constantly on the qui vive."
He heard the telephone ring beneath, and turned quickly.
"I may be wanted," he said. "I'll join you presently. There is my wife's boudoir," and he pointed to a door. "Take Mrs. Paxton in, Theydon. Mrs. Forbes and Evelyn will be glad of your company."
Theydon knocked, and heard Evelyn's voice bidding him enter. Mrs. Forbes was lying on a couch, and her daughter had evidently been seated near her, reading a newspaper.
"I've brought my sister to see you," he explained. "I've been relating such heroic things about you that she simply refused to go home without ocular proof of your existence."
Mrs. Forbes would have risen, but was restrained by the girl's emphatic cry:
"Mother, why won't you behave like an obedient invalid?"
Thus coerced, "Mother" did behave.
"They insist on treating me as a casualty," she cried cheerfully. "What is your sister's name, Mr. Theydon?"
"Mollie," he said thoughtlessly, for he had just touched Evelyn Forbes's hand, and the mere contact gave him an electrical shock.
The women laughed, and Mrs. Paxton blushed.
"Mollie Paxton, at any rate," she said, realizing at once that her brother had completely lost all self-possession at sight of his divinity. "Now, as you are going to stay here, Frank, you shall give me the full measure of the few minutes I can spare, so go and talk over your adventures with Mr. Forbes while I gossip with the prisoners."
Theydon saw that his tactful sister had struck the right note. She might be trusted to make herself eminently agreeable. Her bright, smiling manner had already created a good impression, and a lively chat with one who had not passed through the vicissitudes which beset the Forbes family would be an excellent tonic.
"Before I efface myself, may I be allowed to congratulate Mrs. Forbes on her escape?" he said, halting at the door.
"Yes, you may," replied the older lady. "And, just to show that I am convalescent, kindly tell Tomlinson that I am coming down to luncheon, and that Mrs. Paxton will join us."
Forbes was leaving the telephone when Theydon regained the hall and explained that he had been dismissed from the feminine conclave upstairs. The millionaire closed the door and motioned his companion to a chair.
"How long will it be before London wakes up to the knowledge of what is going on in its midst?" he said. "Is there anything in the newspapers? I have had no time to read. I passed a rather sleepless night, so did not rise until a late hour. Then Helen was fired at. I need hardly tell you that my time has been fully occupied since."
Theydon gave a resume of the paragraph which had appeared in at least one of the morning journals, and admitted that some inkling of the truth was bound to gain publicity during the next few hours.
"I cannot understand why it is the reporters are not here by the score already," he went on. "Some passer-by must have seen or heard the shooting. A pistol cannot be fired in a quiet square like this without attracting general attention."
"That is the extraordinary part of it," said Forbes, smiling grimly. "People heard the noise, of course, but came to the conclusion that a cylinder in the car had back-fired. That was the view taken by two policemen on duty within a few yards of the house. A detective stationed in the cloakroom actually saw the man raising the weapon. He, of course, was under no delusion as to what had happened, and ran out instantly, but the car was then traveling at a fast pace, and was out of sight before the nearest constable could even endeavor to stop it. Anyhow, what was the man to do? We cannot expect that he would whip out a revolver, if he carries one, and blaze away indiscriminately at car and occupants if the chauffeur refused to pull up. Really, Theydon, Wong Li Fu has perplexed the authorities more than any desperado known to this generation. He is aware that his hostage has escaped from Croydon, so he calmly drives past my house, knowing full well that it is efficiently guarded, and fires a pot shot at the first person seen through one of the windows. The man whom I have spoken to over the telephone shares that opinion. He is one of the legal advisers of the Home Office. Just to show the baffling nature of the problem, he says that it will be absolutely impossible, on the evidence available at present, to frame a charge against any Chinaman other than Wong Li Fu. Yet we know that he has at least four or five, and probably three times as many, accomplices."
"Have the police yet obtained any real clew as to the whereabouts of the gang's headquarters? They must have some sort of meeting place. They must eat and sleep somewhere."
"That big detective, Winter, came here this morning. He seemed to be very confident, though I think I gave him the worst shock he has received for many a year when I informed him that within an hour after he had left the house Mrs. Forbes had been shot at, and narrowly escaped a fatal wound. It was he who asked me to invite you to come here. I'm exceedingly sorry that our acquaintance, begun so happily, should involve you in personal risk—"
"As for that," broke in Theydon, "I would not change places with any man in England at this moment."
He feared instantly that he might have said too much, and added with a laugh:
"Don't forget, Mr. Forbes, that I write books, some of them—the most popular ones, I am afraid—being of a sensational type. When this tornado has died down, and Wong Li Fu is carefully hanged, and you and your family are recuperating in Sutherlandshire, I shall resume work with a new inspiration. Never again shall I say to myself, 'Oh, that is too far-fetched,' or fear that I am straining my readers' credulity beyond bounds. If a small gang of Chinamen and Japanese can hold up London, bamboozle the best men in Scotland Yard, and keep a man of your position a prisoner in his own house, I need have no fear of adopting any situation my fertile brain can evolve, because four days ago I would have scoffed at the things which have actually happened as quite impossible and therefore unbelievable."
"Japanese, you say? Why do you mention Japanese?"
"The American, Mr. Handyside, tells me the skulls are of Japanese workmanship. He argues also that the wrestling tricks of which Winter and I, and Mrs. Forbes in lesser degree, have had some experience, are Japanese. More than that, a Jap was arrested outside my place early this morning."
"Mr. Winter said something about it, but he spoke only of Chinamen."
"I have Furneaux's authority for the statement that the prisoner is a Jap, and belongs to a society calling itself