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Walsh—because of what he knew. His tracks end on the shore of the lake. It’s frozen over… but there are no more tracks.”
    And now the speaker came in, followed by two men carrying lanterns; a tall, imperious woman with iron-gray hair, aristocratic features, and deep-set flashing eyes. She paused, looking about her with a slow smile of inquiry. One of the two men saluted Hepburn.
    “My name is Smith,” said Federal Officer 56, “and this is Captain Hepburn. You are Miss Lakin, Dr. Orwin Prescott’s cousin? It was my business, Miss Lakin, to protect him. I fear I have failed.”
    “I fear it also,” she replied, watching him steadily with her fine grave eyes. “Orwin has gone. They have him. He came here for rest and security. He always came here before any important public engagement. Very soon now at Carnegie Hall is the debate with Harvey Bragg.” (She was very impressive, this grande dame of Old America.) “He had learned something, Mr. Smith—heaven knows I wish I shared his knowledge—which would have sent Bluebeard back forever to his pinewoods.”
    “He had!” snapped Smith grimly.
    He reached out a long, leather-clad arm and gripped Miss Lakin’s shoulder. For a moment she was startled—this man’s electric gestures were disturbing—then, meeting that penetrating stare, she smiled with sudden confidence.
    “Don’t despair, Miss Lakin. All is not lost. Others know what Dr. Prescott knew—”
    At which moment somewhere a telephone bell rang!
    “They’ve mended the line,” came the gloomy voice of Deputy Sheriff Black, raised now on a note of excitement.
    He appeared at a door on the right of the vestibule.
    “All incoming calls are covered,” snapped Smith, “as you were advised?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who is calling?”
    “I don’t know,” the deputy sheriff replied, “but it’s someone asking for
Sir Denis Nayland Smith
.”
    He looked in bewilderment from face to face. Nayland Smith stared at Miss Lakin, smiled grimly and walked into a long, low library, a book-lined room with a great log fire burning at one end of it. The receiver of a telephone which stood upon a table near the fire was detached from its rest.
    Someone closed the outer door, and a sudden silence came in that cosy room where the logs crackled. Sarah Lakin stood at the threshold, watching with calm, grave eyes. Mark Hepburn stared in over her shoulder.
    “Yes,” snapped Smith; “who is speaking?”
    There was a momentary silence. “Is it necessary, Sir Denis, for me to introduce myself?”
    “Quite unnecessary, Dr. Fu-Manchu! But it is strangely unlike you to show your hand so early in the game. You are outside familiar territory. So am I. But this time, Doctor, by God we shall break you.”
    “I trust not, Sir Denis; so much is at stake: the fate of this nation, perhaps of the world—and there are bunglers who fail to appreciate my purpose. Dr. Orwin Prescott, for instance, has been very ill-advised.”
    Nayland Smith turned his head towards the door, nodding significantly to Mark Hepburn; some trick of the shaded lights made his lean, tanned face look very drawn, very tired.
    “Since you have a certain manuscript in your possession, I assume it to be only a question of time for you to learn why the voice of the Holy Thorn became suddenly silent. In the Father’s interests and in the interests of Dr. Prescott, I advise you to consider carefully your next step, Sir Denis—”
    Nayland Smith’s heart pulsed a fraction faster—Orwin Prescott was not dead!
    “The abbot’s eloquence is difficult to restrain—and I respect courage. But some day I may cry, in the words of your English King—Henry the Second, was it not?—‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest…’ My cry would be answered—nor should I feel called upon to walk, a barefooted penitent, to pray at the Father Abbot’s tomb, beside his Tower of the Holy Thorn.”
    Nayland Smith made no reply. He sat there, motionless,