PIRATES OF PICCADILLY

William J. Makin

(1893-1944)

1935

Contents

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Chapter 9 | Chapter 10

Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Chapter 15 | Chapter 16

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1

WITH apologetic slowness the battered taxi-cab wheezed into Piccadilly. From the windswept Hyde Park Corner, the driver glimpsed before him the gentle switchback way rising to the Ritz. A luxury road, shimmering beneath electric arc lamps and rumbling to the mighty rhythm of afternoon traffic. His boot stamped on the accelerator.

A white-gloved hand materialised before him in the electric mist. Sighing, the taxi-driver reached for his brakes. With the sob of a dying animal, the cab came to a stop. The traffic policeman looked back across his outstretched arm.

"D'you think you're driving for the Flying Squad?" he growled. "Another couple of inches and you'd have had me in hospital."

The taxi-driver wheezed. It was a feeble imitation of his own cab in motion.

"A miss is as good as a mile― as the bookie said to the earl who'd forgotten to back the favourite," he mumbled in reply. Then he fumbled in the pocket of the tattered overcoat that clung to him for a half-smoked cigarette.

Striking a bent match, the taxi-driver smouldered his cigarette into life. He was breathing the smoke in luscious draughts down his nose when a voice, shrill and nervous, spoke in his ear.

"For God's sake— move quickly. Why are we stopping here?"

The taxi-driver swivelled, his head and gazed at the shadowy figure in the cab. It was the man who had spoken through the speaking-tube. All that could be seen of him was a thin, nervous face that had caught a bluish tinge from the electric arc lamps dangling from the late afternoon sky.

"Nothin' to worry about, sir," growled the taxi-driver in reply. "Just a little traffic hold-up. We'll be there in a couple of jiffs."

"Don't forget the number 70a Piccadilly," shrilled the voice in the speaking tube. "It's― it's a matter of life and death."

"It'll be death for you and a heavy fine for me if I tries to burst through that traffic," replied the driver. He saw the man with the thin, nervous face put up the enormous collar of his overcoat, and shiver as though with cold. Both windows of the cab were shut tight.

"Seems frightened even of 'isself," mused the driver, and then reached for the gears as he saw the last of that mechanical dragon's tail whisk itself into Piccadilly.

With a grin he manoeuvred his battered taxi past the policeman and joined a mighty avalanche of traffic that rumbled towards Piccadilly Circus.

"Hurry― for God's sake!"

The driver swivelled his head at the desperate whisper through the speaking-tube. But his fare had sunk into the shadows of the cab as though hiding from the dazzling light of Piccadilly.

"The Ritz! Who's for the Ritz? Hurry up, lidy!"

The cry of a bus conductor reached them as they slurred forward. The taxi-driver gave his steering-wheel a vicious twist. The cab spluttered to a standstill alongside the pavement.

"This is it, sir! 70a Piccadilly."

The door of the cab was cautiously opened. Enveloped in his over-coat, the collar of which was rich astrakhan, the man with the thin, nervous face stepped out. Without a word he thrust a note into the grimy hand of the driver. Then he ran, like a fox sneaking into a hole, towards the dimly-lit doorway before him. He collided with a blind man tapping his way along the pavement. But he did not stop. The next moment he had disappeared into the doorway.

The taxi-driver's gaze had followed him for a second, then it was transferred to the note in his hand.

"He's gimme a pound," he muttered, as though to reassure himself of the reality. "Gawd, what luck!"

He and his cab lurched forward in the direction of Piccadilly Circus in a state of wheezing happiness.

Standing in a pool of yellow light behind the doors of that house in Piccadilly, the man in the astrakhan .coat panted like someone who had been hunted and reached safety at last. Beads of perspiration stood out on his thin, nervous face.

He was in a luxurious little hall, heavily carpeted and pleasantly warmed. A flunkey in knee-breeches and with powdered wig bowed before him. The big overcoat was helped from his shoulders. The man who had ridden along Piccadilly in the battered taxi-cab was revealed, a thin figure garbed in evening dress. A blood-red ribbon round his collar dangled a glittering order against his shirt front.

"I― I am Prince Serge Lobai," muttered the man, nervously.

"Yes, your Highness. You are expected," murmured the flunkey.

"Expected, eh?" A grin twisted across the nervous features. "I― I―"

A terrified gleam came into his eyes. He swayed. The next moment, with a groan he pitched forward on the carpet. The flunkey dropped the overcoat in his alarm and bent over the figure.

The click of a door sounded softly. In a few seconds he was joined by a dark haired young man in evening dress.

"Just a moment!" ordered the newcomer.

He also bent over the figure slumped on the carpet. His hand strayed towards the heart. Ruthlessly he tore open the stiff shirt front. A thin, miserable white chest was revealed.

The dark-haired man whistled softly.

"He's dead! And look!" His hand indicated the shrunken body. "He's not had a decent meal for days. Starved to death."

A voice, quiet, but imperious, came to their ears.

"Lock the door! Come upstairs, both of you. at once!"

They looked at each other. The voice had a microphone snarl. Except for the dead man on the carpet they were alone.

Quickly the flunkey inserted a key in the door and locked it. The rumble of Piccadilly died away to a pianissimo rhythm.

A clock in the hall tinkled four times.

"GREY...Everything is grey. A dirty grey!"

Arthur Chesham muttered to himself and lit his last cigarette in fitful exasperation. Then he stared moodily out of the window of the Pullman coach in which he was sitting.

The Golden Arrow Limited was stealing away from Dover Pier. The murk of a January afternoon smothered even the trailing white smoke of the engine. In the rose-tinted light of the Pullman coach passengers were disposing themselves after a cold, lumpy crossing of the Channel.

It had been a grey sea, a grey sky, and even a grey ship, insisted Arthur Chesham to himself. And nothing could have been more grey than the so-called white cliffs of Dover. Now the train was speeding rhythmically to a grey London. "And a grey future for me, too." concluded the fair-haired young man.

Perhaps young men of 27 are apt to take life as being bitter-sweet throughout. Arthur Chesham was healthy enough, and possessed of that dogmatic type of face with blue eyes that caused even other young men to admit grudgingly that he was rather good-looking. There seemed no obvious reason for his present suicidal outlook on life. One man of 57 in that Pullman coach who had consistently overeaten for the past 30 years, and was now returning from a dismal Continental spa, actually eyed Arthur Chesham with a hungry enviousness. "The world is made for youth," he sighed. Then his podgy hand reached for the bill-of-fare.

The real reason for Arthur Chesham's grey outlook was clutched in his hand now In the pocket of his tweed coat. It was a ten shilling note. That note represented the young man's entire wealth. It was all that remained of £10,000. And only a fortnight previously he had travelled in this same Golden Arrow train from London to Dover with credit notes to the value of £10,000 in his pocket. In between there had been ten days at Monte Carlo. Ten shillings was all that remained.

"This is your seat, miss."

Chesham looked up to see an attendant ushering a girl in brown into the chair facing him. The girl was about to seat herself when she uttered a cry of dismay.

"But this seat is number thirteen."

"Yes, miss."

The attendant was non-committal.

"But I couldn't possibly―" began the girl.

"I'm afraid it's the only one available. You came aboard rather late, miss."

With a sigh, Arthur Chesham rose.

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind changing seats with me?" he remarked, dryly.

Up to this moment he had only seen the brown-clad back of the girl. But even backs can be expressive. Chesham had already decided that she was worth a second glance. When she turned she exceeded his expectations. A cool, beautiful face and pair of grey eyes that regarded him calmly.

"That's awfully good of you." Her slightly rouged lips entranced him. "Are you certain that you don't mind? Thirteen is terribly unlucky."

"Perhaps only to some people," smiled Chesham, a little ruefully. "Anyhow, I really don't mind."

He took the fateful chair.

With a blank face the attendant deposited her leather suit case, pocketed the tip, and moved away into that rose-tinted atmosphere.

"I suppose it's silly of, me to be so superstitious," flashed the girl, settling herself in the seat. Chesham, who was admiring the russet-red of her hair offset by a charming little hat, smiled encouragingly.

"Superstition sometimes pays," he remarked. "I met a fellow at Monte Carlo who insisted upon gambling against every superstition that existed in the Casino."

"He was a brave man," smiled the girl. "He was a fool," commented Chesham. "Did he win?"

"No, he lost."

"Much?"

Those grey eyes had a questioning look. They had a penetrating frankness that insisted upon a frank reply. To his surprise Chesham found himself saying:

"About ten thousand pounds, I believe."

The adorable lips pouted.

"That was... rather silly," she said.

"It was," agreed Chesham.

The greyness beyond the windows had merged into black. The train was tearing through the Kentish countryside. Mysterious points of light twinkled in the darkness. A bridge roared above them. Then everything was lost in the steady rhythm of the train.

"Will you take tea?" asked the attendant, poised at their side, at an Einsteinian angle.

The girl glanced at Chesham. His hand Instinctively sought that solitary ten shilling note.

"I'm sure you'd like some tea," he ventured desperately.

The grey eyes smiled. "I'd love some."

"Tea for two," ordered Chesham. He wondered vaguely whether ten shillings would be enough for this extravagance. Seat number 13!

"Been holidaying?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"No, business. Hurried business. And you?"

He hesitated. How could one describe his mad adventure?

"Er... holidaying," he said.

"At Monte Carlo?"

"Yes."

"An amusing place, Monte Carlo."

"Very amusing," he agreed grimly. "A place for pigeon-fanciers."

"Eh?"

"Pigeons to be plucked and pigeons to be shot," she said. "And a little group of pigeon-fanciers who indulge in both occupations."

A white teacloth was fluttered between them. While the blank faced attendant was laying the little tea table, Chesham speculated upon this cool, alert beauty who faced him.

Business? Hurried business? Somebody's secretary? Lucky devil. Married? His eyes sought her hands. She was drawing off her gloves. How gracefully some women do that! Slim, cool hands— as beautiful as her face. Not a single ring on any finger. Unmarried, then. Perhaps she worked for a West End dressmaker. Buying frocks in Paris. Even he could admire the expensive style of that brown costume. Combined with her russet-brown hair, she had an autumnal beauty about her.

"Have you been far on the Continent?" he asked.

"Central Europe," she replied.

"Really!"

She must be a secretary. One didn't buy frocks in Central Europe. But why a secretary? Well, she looked so beastly competent. Or, rather, admiringly competent. He gazed fascinated at two hands, two red, roughened hands of the attendant depositing all the paraphernalia of tea before them. Then her cool, slim hands took charge of everything in that competent way she had. He released his hold of the ten-shilling note to take the cup of tea she proffered him. The steady rhythm of the train was soothing.

"You know, I'm curious," she began.

He looked up. The grey eyes were searching him.

"Yes?"

"That fellow whom you met in Monte Carlo, the one who lost ten thousand pounds— what happened to him?"

"Oh, he's all right."

"Could he afford to lose ten thousand pounds?"

She was damnably persistent. He stirred his tea reflectively.

"Can anyone afford to lose ten thousand pounds nowadays?" he said, evasively.

"Only millionaires," she replied. "Was he a millionaire?"

"He had only ten thousand pounds in all the world," he muttered.

"And he risked everything?"

"Why not? Better to try and make it a hundred thousand than eke out an existence in a boarding-house on the income of the ten thousand. But perhaps you believe in safety first. In these upside-down times everyone talks of safety first. It's become a national slogan. Safety first!"

He thrust a whole cake into his mouth, as though he would stifle the scorn in his voice. The rhythm of the train had risen to a higher key. For the rest, he was aware of silence. Confound the girl! He knew that her grey eyes were searching him.

"I think I would like to meet the man you saw in Monte Carlo," she said quietly.

"I hardly think you will meet him," he said, a little defiantly, and holding out his cup for more tea.

"Why should you say that?"

"Well, I shouldn't imagine he would move in― er― good society after this."

She laughed, a cool ripple of delightful laughter that left him devastated.

"And where is he now?" she asked.

"On the way back to England, I expect. The Casino authorities believe in playing the game to the bitter end. you know. In a case of deserving destitution they will gladly give the poor devil a first-class return ticket to his home."

"I see." She blew a little cloud of cigarette smoke between them as though to screen another attack. "He might even be on this train?"

"He might." Chesham was nervously cautious.

"But of course you would recognise him?"

"Of course."

The blank-faced attendant materialised like an evil genie through the cigarette smoke.

"Your bill, sir."

Chesham did not look at it. Carelessly he brought forth the ten-shilling note, and dropped it on the plate.

"Keep the change!" he gambled. A moment's pause. Then: "Thank you, sir. We'll be drawing into Victoria in fifteen minutes, sir."

He disappeared in a further cloud of cigarette smoke. Thrusting his hands into his empty pockets, Arthur Chesham turned with a grin towards the girl. But the seat was empty.

THE lights of London. The cheery glare of the suburbs, a criss-cross of steel rails, electric trains, and the yellow, red, and green lights of the track. The rumble of a bridge beneath. More lights. The Golden Arrow trailing sparks like a comet through this constellation. Then the resonance of some gigantic hall. A platform with porters gliding past. The flash of pale city faces.

"Victoria!... Stand clear, please.... Hi, taxi!"

Arthur Chesham gave a last quick glance round for the girl In brown. He thought he saw her step easily from the moving train to the platform. But he may have been mistaken. Perhaps it was better so. It would have been embarrassing to stand on that platform with his two suitcases― the last of his possessions― and wonder vaguely what she expected him to do. For now that he was in London he had not the slightest idea where to go or what to do.

As he trailed behind the other passengers towards the door of the Pullman where his two suitcases awaited him, he mentally assessed their value at the nearest pawnshop. Here he was without even the proverbial penny in his pocket. His last ten shillings had gone on two cups of tea and a piece of cake. Savagely he seized his two suitcases, ignoring the porter who rushed forward. He hadn't even a sou to tip the fellow.

Towards the engine, now purring contentedly like a giant cat, the man without a penny in his pocket stalked with a suitcase in each hand. He almost collided with a smartly-uniformed chauffeur who stopped his progress. The chauffeur touched his hat.

"Allow me, sir."

He held out his hands for the suitcases. "No thanks!" growled Chesham. "But I must insist, sir."

To his astonishment, Chesham found the suitcases taken from his hands and carried expeditiously towards a huge, luxurious limousine that throbbed gently at the side of the platform. It was a car In a thousand.

"Look here, you've made a mistake!" protested Chesham.

He saw the chauffeur give a quick glance at the two suitcases that he had stowed by the driver's seat. Chesham followed his gaze. He saw that each of the suitcases had a strange label pasted on the ends, a label that stood out among even the gaudy collection of Riviera hotels. It was a black and white label. And the design— a skull and crossbones.

"I've picked up the wrong suitcases," thought Chesham. Then a second glance assured him that he had not.

"No, there's no mistake, sir," the chauffeur was saying. "You're expected, sir."

"But I don't understand..." began Chesham.

The smartly-uniformed chauffeur clicked open the door.

"Please step inside, sir."

A grey luxuriousness of cushions and nickel fittings. A seat into which one could sink with a sigh. Grey rugs. Chesham, confused, recalled his grey entry Into England. He hesitated no longer, but stepped inside. The door closed. The driver took his seat. A purr from the engine and the car glided out of Victoria Station and into the electric glare of London.

"Of course, the whole affair is a mad mistake," mused Chesham to himself. "I shall probably find myself apologising to some damned dowager who expected a gigolo by this train. And when I've finished apologising, the pawn shops will be closed. Still, for a few more minutes I'm protected from poverty by the thin glass windows of this car."

And he leaned back with a laugh, careless as to where the adventure would lead him.

He had not long to wait. With a sort of insolent competence the chauffeur swung the car through a medley of streets and traffic lanes, and soon they were stealing along Piccadilly. The car shimmered along a way lavish with electric light. It added to the luxurious feeling that was overcoming Chesham. Idly, he glimpsed a clock in the distance. It was a quarter to seven.

"I wonder where I shall be at a quarter past seven," he mused.

At that moment the car throbbed alongside the pavement.

Through the hurrying throng of people Arthur Chesham saw a door open revealing a discreetly-lighted interior. A flunkey In knee-breeches reached the door of the car, opened it, and bowed.

"Good evening, sir."

Chesham stepped out on to the pavement. Several people turned and gazed enviously at the luxurious car, and the young man who was following the flunkey towards that doorway in Piccadilly. The chauffeur carrying the two suitcases brought up the rear.

Chesham glimpsed a blind man, a shining brass notice against his greasy overcoat, standing pathetically near that doorway. Instinctively, the young man's hand went to his pocket. Then he cursed softly, realising that he was penniless.

"This way, sir."

The flunkey waited in the doorway. Chesham raised his head and glimpsed a number. It was 70a Piccadilly.

The door closed. Chesham was relieved of his hat and coat. Then the flunkey led him up a thickly-carpeted staircase.

"I hope you'll like your rooms, sir," the flunkey said, as they proceeded along a little corridor. "If everything is not to your liking perhaps you will telephone to me downstairs, and let me know."

"I will," murmured Chesham. "By the way, what is your name?"

"Julian, sir."

"And the name of this― er―"

Chesham vaguely Indicated the rich magnificence of the interior in which he found himself.

"The Pirates, sir."

"Ah, yes, the Pirates."

Perhaps it was a club. Chesham had never heard of the Pirates. However, clubs nowadays were born in the night and dead at dawn. He was too deeply involved in the adventure to question anything further. Julian had stopped and was gently opening the door of a room.

"This is your suite, sir. I was asked to mention that dinner is at eight o'clock. At least, that is the time when the guests will have assembled. You will be expected to take your place at the head of the table at ten minutes past eight. I hope that is quite clear, sir."

"Perfectly clear, Julian. Perfectly."

Chesham grinned his bewilderment. He had entered the room, and the door had closed discreetly behind him. Julian had disappeared, and the young man saw his fair-haired self in a mirror at the other side of the room.

It was a room furnished with that costly simplicity of modern style. Mirrors, polished steel furniture, cushions of cubist pattern, and a carpet covering the floor with a maze of black-and-white circles. The walls blazed with cunningly-concealed lights. On one of the little, low tables was a bent glass tube. Chesham flicked a switch in the steel base, and the tube became a rod of light for reading.

"A room fit for a film star," he chuckled to himself. "But why for me?"

His tour of investigation led him towards a steel, black box nestling near the electric fire. Another little switch, which intrigued him to flick it over.

Immediately the room was echoing quietly to the thrumming of a Russian Balalaika orchestra. They were playing some stirring mad dance, now hectic and joyous, finally mournful and sad. For some reason Chesham found himself thinking of that girl in brown who an hour ago had been talking with him in the Golden Arrow Pullman. He recalled vividly the autumnal gold of her hair, the frank flash of her grey eyes, and the ¿adorable pout of her slightly rouged lips. Seat No. 13. And now? He sighed.

"Good evening, Mr. Chesham! May I come in?"

Startled, his eyes sought the mirror above his head. Reflected there was the vision of a girl in brown. She stood in the doorway, her grey eyes regarding him and a slight smile parting her lips. It was the girl of the Golden Arrow.

She closed the door softly behind her and came towards him.

2

"I SUPPOSE you are a little mystified," the girl said quietly.

"Well... er... just a little," Chesham replied.

He watched her sink into a chair with that same grace that he had observed on the Golden Arrow train. She opened a cigarette box and helped herself. With a deference that had come instinctively on the train he offered her a light.

"Thank you."

He studied the glowing end of the match.

"I see you have learned my name," he ventured.

"Yes. that was easy. A special booking ticket on your seat gave me that information."

"I see." He faced those grey eyes, which were now regarding him with a certain shrewdness. "And may I ask why you decided to develop our acquaintance in this somewhat mysterious manner?"

She smiled. He thought that she seemed particularly adorable at that moment.

"Shall I flatter you and say that I thought you looked rather nice? You are nice, you know."

He positively blushed. Still, the male in him insisted upon penetrating this blague. "I'm not a gigolo― to be hired," he said bluntly.

It was her turn to blush.

"Now you are not being so nice," she pouted. "Still, I suppose I must be frank."

"Please."

"Daddy and I were expecting a very important guest for dinner to-night. It is for all of us a tremendous occasion. When I reached Dover this afternoon, I had an urgent telephone call from Daddy that the important guest would not be able to put in an appearance. Something had to be done. The situation was desperate."

"Are there thirteen guests at the table?" asked Chesham.

But the sally failed to bring a smile to her lips. Her face was grave.

"I said that the affair was of tremendous importance," she went on. "It was necessary to find a suitable substitute for the important guest. I went to take my seat in the Golden Arrow and... er... met you. I was delighted."

He bowed. She gently flicked the ash from her cigarette.

"And I also felt sorry for you," she said quickly.

Again he flushed. "Why?"

"Because you told that story of the man who had lost ten thousand pounds in such a deliberately casual fashion that only a fool would not have understood that you were talking about yourself. I realised then that you were broke― broke to the wide," she continued. "And still you were rather nice about it. I decided there and then that you were the obvious substitute for our distinguished guest. While you were squandering money on the attendant I walked to the end of the Pullman coach, found your suitcases, labelled them, and gave word to the chauffeur at Victoria Station to look after you. I hope you found everything comfortable?"

"Too comfortable," said Chesham, eyeing her steadily. "So comfortable that the whole affair made me feel uncomfortable. I must say that it seems a peculiar fashion in which to invite a man to dinner. Those labels, for example." He pointed to the suitcases that were in the room. "Why the skull and crossbones?"

She laughed and rose.

"Just a little household mark," she murmured. "But I see I was mistaken. You don't want to help me. Anyhow, I don't blame you. Ill ring for the car and see that you are taken back at once to Victoria Station and deposited with your suitcases on the platform where your adventure began."

She jabbed the end of her cigarette in the tray and walked towards the telephone that was affixed against the wall. The queer lights of the room caught her hair so that it seemed a gleaming casque of copper.

"One moment, please."

She turned at the sound of his command. "Yes?"

"Did I hear you say that you wanted me to help you?"

"That was what I said."

"It happens to be the first time in this extraordinary affair that I have been asked to help," he said, a little grimly. "For the most part I appear to have been commanded, ordered, even browbeaten."

"If you feel like that―" she began. He waved her cold remark aside.

"Let me understand the position," he said quietly. "Why is it so important that you must have another guest at the dinner-table this evening?"

"It is not a question of another guest," she replied. "One could walk out into Piccadilly and discover a dozen well-dressed men willing to enjoy a dinner at someone else's expense and ask no questions."

"Then why―"

"It is a guest that is wanted."

He gazed at her, bemused for a moment. Then comprehension came.

"I think I understand," he said, quietly. "You want me to impersonate the important guest."

"Oh, if only you will," she cried, dropping the mask of cool competence so completely that Chesham was profoundly surprised. She had come near to him." Her cool hand had instinctively closed on his. "Promise me you will?" she pleaded.

He was dimly aware that in the background that Russian orchestra was still thrumming a sad, mad melody. And her grey eyes had a desperately anxious look that swept away all his scruples.

"Of course I will," he said quietly. "I shall be delighted." A smile crossed his features. "In fact, if I don't have dinner with you I haven't the slightest idea where I shall be able to get one."

"Then it's settled." she murmured, with a slight pressure of her cool fingers which enthralled him. She turned to go.

"But tell me," he asked, "who am I supposed to impersonate at this dinner-party?"

She whispered from her vantage point at the doorway.

"Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia."

He laughed outright. "Is this a joke?"

"No. Why?"

"I've never heard of him, or his country."

He heard her whisper as she sidled through the doorway. "You will."

And only the blank face of the door remained.

A microphonic voice emanated from the radio:

"The Moscow Balalaika Orchestra will now play the overture from 'Si j'étais roi.' "

The joyous lilt of the music came thrumming gently through the room.

He suddenly recollected that there was one other question he wanted to ask. Her name!

Once again the door facing the mirror opened, and this time it revealed a black-coated man with a heavy jaw.

"Good evening, sir."

"Oh, good evening," said Chesham, eyeing him cautiously.

"I'm to valet you. sir. That's my orders."

"I see." Chesham was beyond surprise at any new development in this adventure. He gave the fellow his keys, and watched him take the two suitcases into the bed-room that led off from this modernised lounge. Idly curious, he followed. The bedroom was luxurious. Even the most fastidious bachelor could not have asked for anything more comfortable or more discreetly expensive.

"Am I staying the night here?" he asked.

The man with the heavy jaw swung round from the wardrobe where he was arranging the few meagre clothes that Chesham still possessed.

"I understand so, sir. Why, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Chesham watched him out of the corner of his eye as the fellow resumed his duties. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Scraggs, sir. Joseph Scraggs."

A sinister name.

"Been here long?"

"With 'The Pirates,' sir? Lor' lumme, seven years, sir. There's no better master than the chief, though he is a bit queer at times."

"The chief?"

"Ain't you met him yet, sir? Well, that's a pleasure to come. He's got a rare taste in ties."

"Ties?"

"Neckties. Likes 'em well colored and spotted. Spends a fortune every year in the Burlington Arcade."

The valet was holding Chesham's own poor selection in his big rough hands as he spoke.

"Anyhow, the black one for me to-night," said Chesham, pertinently.

"Yes, sir. I'll get your bath ready in the meantime."

"Thanks."

As the valet disappeared into the bath-room, and enveloped himself in a cloud of steam to the accompaniment of much splashing, Chesham wandered idly around the suite of rooms at his disposal. The radio was still dribbling its music, splashing it into the room like one of those bath taps. And a queer rush of thoughts was being churned in the mind of the young man as he paced the cubist-design carpet.

To reassure himself, he walked to the window, and pulled aside one of the heavy curtains. It was like looking down into a trench of glittering light. The black cliff of the Ritz, dotted with its discreetly-lit caves of luxury, merged into the night sky before him. Electric arc-lamps flooded that moving, rumbling stream of traffic, and men and women below. Piccadilly just before the dinner-hour. A Mecca for many lonely men in the wilds of Africa, and Asia; a trench where men can bathe in light, and luxury, and crowds. Always there is a certain well-tailored masculinity about Piccadilly. The women had their aggressively feminine Oxford Street.

Reassured by that human stream beneath him, Chesham turned towards the door that led to the corridor outside. Just as his hand stretched out to the steel knob a curious sound reached his ears. A slurring sound. It suggested something heavy being dragged along the corridor. He stood, listening. It must have been something heavy. He could hear the hard breathing of men as they dragged the object past his door and along the corridor. The slurring sound followed them.

He hesitated for a few seconds. Then, quietly, he opened the door. The corridor was empty. But he could see that the carpet had been disarranged by the heavy object dragged along it.

He strolled along the corridor and eventually reached the staircase leading down to that entrance hall where the flunkey, Julian, had received him. Julian, in his knee breeches, was standing in the entrance hall now. But Chesham was not looking at him.

His gaze was fixed on a trio of men descending that staircase. They were in evening dress, and strolled down the stair-case arm in arm. At least, at first glance that was what it seemed. Then Chesham noticed that the middle, man in that trio seemed to be behaving queerly. The figure swayed drunkenly. The man on the right was holding an opera-hat on the head of the man in the middle.

They appeared as three men who had dined well and lavishly. The man in the middle was obviously drunk. But was he drunk? Chesham's gaze travelled to the feet of the figure. They were trailing, slurring helplessly down that staircase. In that one brief moment Chesham realised that the man was dead, and that they were taking the body out of the house.

Fascinated, he stood at the top of that staircase and watched every movement. Arm in arm the trio stood there while Julian, the flunkey, cautiously opened the front door. The congested pavement of Piccadilly was revealed, glittering with movement. It flashed up from the doorway like a strip of moving film to the watcher above. The luxurious limousine, the one that had brought Chesham from Victoria Station, floated into view.

The flunkey gave a quick glance up and down the pavement.

"Now!" he whispered.

With a sudden lurch forward, the trio were across the pavement and into the limousine. A woman, heavily rouged, gave a quick glance over her shoulder at those three men in evening dress apparently scrambling over each other into a limousine. She laughed, a little shrilly. That laugh was wafted up to Chesham. It brought a queer chill to his spine.

"Your bath is ready, and waiting," growled a voice at his side.

Chesham swung round to discover the heavy-jawed Scraggs alongside. And the man was poised, like a boxer, ready to strike. For one brief moment, they eyed each other.

"Very good, Scraggs."

Chesham turned on his heel and walked back to his room. As he closed the door behind him, he heard a key turn in the lock.

He helped himself to a cigarette, and puffed it thoughtfully.

An hour later, fresh from his bath and garbed in a well-fitting dinner-jacket, Arthur Chesham was still sitting in that modernised room, smoking, and apparently listening to the radio. A voice, professorial and pontifical, was booming facts and figures about the economic situation. The voice rose above the dull, surf-like roar of traffic In Piccadilly beneath.

The door clicked open. Julian, still resplendent in knee-breeches, stood there.

"They are waiting for you, sir." he murmured.

Chesham eyed him. The man's face was a mask.

"Good. I'm hungry."

He stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray and followed Julian as he led the way along the corridor and down that staircase again. At the foot of the staircase the flunkey stopped. His hand reached out to a small table, and took up a blood-red ribbon from which dangled a glittering order.

"I was to ask you, sir," he said, "if you would kindly wear this over your shirt-front."

Chesham took the object in his hand. He could see at a glance that the glitter came from real diamonds. Yet, somehow, as his fingers touched the red ribbon he had a sudden distaste of the object.

"Is it― er― necessary?" he asked quietly.

That masklike face came a shade nearer. "It is necessary― sir."

With a quick movement Chesham drew the ribbon over his head and adjusted the order against his white shirt-front. The flunkey looked at it approvingly. Then, with a nod, he continued to lead the way along another corridor.

This ended in a doorway. There was a confused murmur of voices from within. The guests were waiting.

With a flourish Julian opened the door and flung it wide.

"His Royal Highness Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia!" he announced, loudly.

Taking a deep breath, Chesham stepped into the light.

3

IT was a confused vision of faces― men's faces― that greeted Arthur Chesham as he stepped into the room. They were grouped in a semi-circle, and like a row of puppets at a fair they bowed simultaneously. It was then that the somewhat bewildered Chesham saw the faces changed into heads— bald heads, sleek heads, scanty-haired heads, and one close-cropped head.

"Your Royal Highness will permit me to perform the necessary introductions." intoned a voice at his elbow. Despite the respectful tone there was a suspicion of command in the voice.

Chesham glanced down. Another bald head at his elbow. But there was upturned towards him a pair of shrewd grey eyes. The man was hunched in an invalid's chair on wheels. His firm hands grasped the spokes. Instinctively Chesham realised that this was the chief.

"My arthritis still cripples me," went on the chief, apologetically. "You will excuse me, your Highness?"

"Clever brains are often housed in bad bodies," murmured Chesham non-committally.

The chief smiled.

"Very true. I always thought the Greek idea bovine."

He wheeled his chair towards the edge of the semi-circle.

"Prince Serge," he began, "you have here Koravia's great patriot― Ferenc Jokai. Let us hope that his patriotism will be rewarded by his becoming Koravia's first chancellor under your Highness' reign."

Mechanically, Chesham extended his hand. It was seized and brushed by a heavy grey moustache. A pair of studious tired eyes were turned towards the young man with dog-like devotion.

"I knew your father, Prince Serge," faltered the old patriot. "I was with him when the revolution burst. All my life I have regretted that I did not die with him when the mob stormed the palace. But to-night those regrets are finished. I see his son. and the hope of a new king in Koravia."

The simple speech ended in something like a sob. Chesham was moved, despite himself, by this old patriot.

"Your patriotism does you credit, and shall not be forgotten," replied Chesham.

He passed on to the next person in the semi-circle. There was a click of heels, and a close-cropped head bent in a sharp military bow before him.

"General Mikzath." murmured the chief. "He is in charge of the military preparations for the coup d'etat. For five years he has served in the French Foreign Legion."

"Where they teach a man to fight, sire," added Mikzath.

"And also to die, so I have been told." smiled Chesham.

"Wars demand that men die," growled Mikzath, proudly.

"And also revolutions. General. Don't forget that," chuckled the chief.

"Give me an army, and I shall place you on the throne of Koravia, your Highness," said the general.

Chesham shrugged his shoulders significantly. He wondered vaguely whether he was supposed to have an army, ready to fight or die for him. And if there was no army, what a pathetic, lonely figure General Mikzath would be.

He passed on.

"And here we have Sholom Asch, a great Jew financier," said the chief from his wheeled chair. "Kings have always needed clever men to keep the coffers of the country well-filled. I think your Highness will have no cause to complain of the ability of Sholom Asch."

The Jew raised his sleek head, and smiled from dark, oblique eyes. He kissed fervently the hand extended to him by Chesham.

"And how do you spend your time, waiting for the day, Sholom Asch?" asked Chesham.

A quiet smile crossed the clever face of the Jew.

"I am a pawnbroker, your Highness," he replied.

Chesham nodded.

"And here are two other supporters of the cause, your Highness," insisted the chief as he manoeuvred Chesham towards the other two men in the room.

"They have come from Koravia, and landed by aeroplane at Croydon this afternoon," explained the chief. "They leave again early in the morning with, we hope, news that the revolution is ready to begin and that your Highness is ready to take his lawful place upon the throne of Koravia."

The chief concluded by announcing the names of these two, undistinguished messengers. Their names sounded both unpronounceable and incoherent. They touched Chesham's hand with obvious awe, although Chesham himself was wondering whether the farce had not gone far enough. Supposing he turned and laughed in their faces? Supposing he tore this blood-red ribbon from his shirt-front, flung it to the carpet, and revealed himself as Arthur Chesham, an ordinary, foolish gambler whom the bank at Monte Carlo had broken. With the thought in his mind, he turned. His hand grasped the glittering order. He saw before him that absurd semi-circle of figures, with the crippled figure of the chief in his invalid chair before him. He even glimpsed out of the corner of his eye the tough figure of Julian in his flunkey garb. But he cared for none of them. He laughed aloud.

"Gentlemen―" he began.

But at that moment the door opened quietly. A girl with titian hair and garbed in a glittering, diamante evening frock entered the room. Her lips parted in an adorable smile as she saw Chesham.

The man who was about to reveal everything faltered. Even as the words burbled on his lips she came towards him confidently.

"Gentlemen," continued Chesham, "I think we ought to begin dinner... Allow me."

And he offered his arm to the girl in white.

4

"THIS individual must die."

The talk at the dinner table had lapsed into French. Diplomatic talk demanded a diplomatic language. Chesham appreciated that. But this growled-out statement by General Mikzath brought a brutal note into the conversation.

"This individual Jan Neruda, must die..." repeated the general, aggressively, and glaring in the direction of Chesham.

Chesham, who was enjoying a sole mornay, and also appreciative of the fact that the girl with the titian hair was seated on his left, smiled disarmingly at the general.

"By all means," he said. "But... er... who is Jan Neruda?"

At once he realised that he had blundered. Apart from the astonished silence that fell upon the delegates from Koravia, a delicately-shod foot pressed upon his own. Chesham turned towards the girl. But her grey eyes appeared charmingly innocent.

"Jan Neruda! You ask who is Jan Neruda?"

The close-cropped hair of the general positively bristled with indignation. At the same time the repetition of that name had a terrifying effect upon the two delegates who had arrived by aeroplane. A grey smudge of fear appeared on their faces.

"Jan Neruda is your most implacable enemy, sire," went on the general. "He is the Dictator of Koravia. He is..." (words failed him and he fell back upon, that contemptuous French expression) "...he is an individual."

"Exactly," murmured Chesham, sipping his glass of Chateau Margaux. "He is an individual. I have no desire that his name be mentioned in my presence. It is better that certain names be unspoken. Therefore, let us refer to him as― the individual."

He heard a soft sigh of relief from the girl at his side. At the same moment the delicate pressure of the shoe was removed.

"His Highness is wise," nodded Ferenc Jokai, quietly wiping his grey moustache with a napkin. "It is better that certain names, which we all know, should be referred to indirectly. Moreover, we are not here to discuss murder."

"Let us call it― assassination," smiled Sholom Asch.

"Murder or assassination, it's all the same," growled the general. "You can't have a revolution without bloodshed. And, if the― er― individual dies it will save us much fighting and thereby many useful lives."

"You told us, General, that in the Foreign Legion they taught men how to die," commented Jokai, bitterly.

The general spluttered. It was the clever Jew who saved the situation. Declining the offer of more wine from the attentive Julian, he said, with a smile:

"The best soldiers know when to run away, so that they may fight another day. An English proverb, is it not, Monsieur Mann?"

He had turned to the crippled figure of the chief who, seated in his chair at the end of the table, seemed content to dine on thin slices of toast and a modest glass of wine. It was the first occasion on which Chesham had heard the name mentioned. Monsieur Mann!

The chief nodded.

"Exactly," he said. "But a revolution in favour of Royalty is not so easy. The King has been dethroned. Humpty Dumpty has fallen. It will not be so easy to put him back again, even with horses and men."

"But the King is dead. And long live Prince Serge." cried Jokai, rising abruptly in his seat and raising his glass of wine.

All the others with the exception of the crippled man in the invalid chair followed suit.

"Long live Prince Serge, our future King," they echoed, raising their glasses to the amused and rather sardonic figure of Chesham. He nodded casually, regally. Then, turning to the general, he said:

"Talking of horses and men, General, just what are the forces at our command?"

The general shrugged his shoulders. His weather-beaten face was disturbed.

"Of men, not more than a thousand at the moment, sire," he said. "But the cause, once started, will bring the men by the tens of thousands. Wars are fought to-day with something more important than men― machines."

"I see," nodded Chesham. "And may one inquire what are the King's machines?"

"Five aeroplanes, suitably equipped with machine-guns, and bomb-racks. Ten motor cars. Also a goodish quantity of tear-gas. The thousand men are nearly all more important than soldiers, for they are mechanics. For a revolution, give me men in overalls rather than men in khaki."

"General, they taught you a lot in the Foreign Legion," commented Chesham with a new respect.

The general frowned.

"That is just what I did not learn in the Foreign Legion, sire," he replied. "I discovered those methods elsewhere."

"A suggestion of my own." added the chief, dryly, from his prison chair.

"And where is the first attack to be launched?" went on Chesham, inquiringly. He had helped himself liberally to a Siberian soufflé and was thoroughly enjoying this dinner-party of good food, strange companions, and talk of bloody revolution. "I presume you will first capture the palace?"

"Spectacular, but not effective," said the general, shaking his head. "No, our first attack will be on the broadcasting station of Koravia. Our engineers will rush the place. Once the microphones are in our hands we can call upon the whole patriotic public of the country to rise in the cause of Royalty."

"Again, an idle suggestion of my own," was the dry comment of the chief.

Chesham faced that figure in the chair. "Monsieur Mann seems to be very much the power behind the throne," he murmured.

A pair of grey, cynical eyes were flecked with amusement.

"Monsieur Mann is the power behind the throne," broke in the silky voice of Sholom Asch. "But he is being well paid for his services."

"No more than I deserve," was the dry comment of the crippled figure.

Chesham began to be dangerously inquisitive.

"May one ask the price?"

There was silence for a moment.

"It is a mine," replied Sholom Asch.

"Ah, a gold mine?"

But the crippled figure shook its head.

"No, only fools pant after gold, these days, when the big States are frightened of gold. I seek a rarer metal. The mine I want is a radium mine."

"There is radium, then, in Koravia?" asked Chesham.

The chief nodded.

"So we have reason to believe. But, then, it is my business," he went on. "The concession, Prince Serge, is to be given me and the syndicate I represent in return for placing you on the throne of Koravia."

"I see," murmured Chesham.

"I hope you do," drawled the chief significantly. Then he nodded to the girl in white who sat on Chesham's left.

She promptly rose. As she stood there, her cheeks flushed, and a glass of wine in her hand, the man who was pretending to be a prince gazed at her With unconcealed admiration. She turned and looked down at him, a strange smile parting her lips.

"Gentlemen!" she cried. "I give you the toasts― long live the King of Koravia!"

The others had leaped to their feet, all .with the exception of the crippled man in the invalid's chair and Chesham. There were tears in the eyes of the old patriot, Ferenc Jokai.

"Long live the King of Koravia!" they echoed.

"God bless him!" added old Jokai.

There was a shuffle of chairs as they resumed their seats. An impish smile crossed the face of Chesham. Well, the time had come to end this farce. Why should he, a penniless man, pretend further? He felt mildly amused, even sorry for these fervent patriots who had come to a dinner-table in a strange house in Piccadilly to talk of revolution and the overthrow of a modern republic. It would be kinder to tell them the truth.

He stood up.

"Please!" came a pleading whisper at his side.

He knew that it was the girl with the titian hair, the girl whom he so frankly admired. Yes, but even for her he could not go on pretending. He dared not look at her, lest his resolve should weaken. He faced the assembled guests.

"Gentlemen..."he began.

Then his eyes glimpsed that crippled figure of the chief in the invalid's chair. His eyes also glimpsed something else. Monsieur Mann was toying with a white napkin. Beneath the napkin something gleamed. Arthur Chesham realised what it was. An automatic pistol pointed directly at him. And there was a determined, merciless gaze from the grey eyes.

"Gentlemen," continued Chesham, "I thank you. No one could wish for better patriots, for finer men. May we each reach our heart's desire."

And he sat down.

"Bravo!" called out General Mikzath, and held his glass to the flunkey for more wine.

With an ironic gesture the chief also held up his glass and drank.

"Bravely spoken, your Highness!" he drawled.

The automatic pistol had disappeared.

"AND now?" inquired

Arthur Chesham of the crippled figure in the chair.

The last of the party of conspirators had gone. Two men had left to catch an early plane from Croydon. General Mikzath, Sholom Asch, and Pere.nc Jokai had gone their respective ways. Julian, in his flunkey garb, was openly yawning. The girl had sauntered across to a mirror.

"And now?" Insisted Arthur Chesham.

The chief smiled, and with a slight wave of his hand indicated the girl at the other side of the room.

"The night is still young," he murmured. "And I'm sure Helen would be delighted to dance. Why don't you both run round the corner to the Bandon? I hear they have the best dance band in London."

"Confound the dance!" spluttered Chesham.

"That really is impolite," said the girl, gently, coming towards him.

"Yes, but don't you see," argued Chesham, "that what I want is―"

"What do you want?" broke in the man in the chair, impatiently. "You are a man without a penny, without a job. I offer you the chance of being a king in a Central European State, I provide you with a first-class royalist plot all ready and prepared, and I am willing to finance you until that plot succeeds― as it must succeed. For a man who has not even the wherewithal to go on the dole I think you should be extremely grateful."

Arthur Chesham braced himself.

"I'm grateful for a very good dinner and some amusing if fantastic talk," he replied. "But I do, at least, deserve some sort of explanation."

The grey eyes of the crippled man glinted.

"You already know too much," he retorted. "Let me tell you that you are dealing with Mark Mann, Chief of the Pirates of Piccadilly."

"I've never heard of you, or your pirates," said Chesham angrily.

Mark Mann smiled.

"I'm not surprised," he said. "The Pirates happens to be a rather exclusive club to which one is admitted to membership on one condition― that is, not to ask awkward questions."

"Well, I gather I'm not yet a member," growled Chesham.

"Candidates are only blackballed for one reason," went on Mark Mann easily.

"And that is?"

"Cowardice... the fear of consequences."

Chesham clenched his fists. He was about to retort angrily, when the girl quietly stepped forward. She bent over her father, patted a cushion into a more comfortable position for him, and gently kissed the bald head.

"It's time you went to bed, Daddy," she said. "Mr. Chesham and I are going out to dance." She turned a challenging gaze towards the young man. "We'll have a little talk and tell you all about it in the morning, eh?"

Mark Mann smiled, and patted her hand. "All right," he murmured. "Enjoy yourself. And don't get too tired." He held out his hand to Chesham. "Good night, young man. I'm sorry if I lost my temper. Must be the dinner party. Cursed affairs, anyhow, dinner parties. Can't understand why people like to eat in groups... Look after my little girl. And if you must say good-bye after the dance, don't hang about the doorstep."

And he waved a hand to Julian to wheel him away.

Standing, nonplussed, Chesham heard a quiet voice saying: "Shall we?"

She was tantalisingly beautiful in that glittering white diamante frock. More beautiful than when he had regarded her, detached as he was then, in the smoothly rumbling Golden Arrow train. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I should be delighted, but unfortunately―"

He hesitated. She raised her eyes.

"What is it?"

"I haven't a penny."

Mark Mann in his Invalid's chair had reached the door. At that same moment the door opened, and a dark young man in evening dress appeared.

"Oh, you come at the right moment, Geoffrey," said the chief. "I want £25. Have you got it?"

The dark young man nodded pleasantly In the direction of the girl, and at the same time fumbled in his pocket for a wallet.

"Yes, I think I have, chief," he said, counting a series of five pound notes. "I was just about to take Helen to dance at the Bandon."

"No need," replied Mark Mann curtly. "Our young friend is about to take her. By the way, I don't think you've made each other's acquaintance yet, Chesham. This is Geoffrey Winterton, formerly a medical student, and now a valuable member of the Pirates."

Winterton bowed, but did not hold out his hand. There was something like a scowl on his handsome, dark face.

"Give him the £25, Geoffrey," went on Mark Mann easily. "He'll need it if he has to amuse Helen."

"But I can't take £25 from you," protested Chesham.

Mark Mann waved a hand.

"For services rendered," he replied, "and If we don't see you again I hope you won't consider yourself badly paid for the evening's work."

"Please take it," urged Helen. "I want to dance, and I only dance when I know it's expensive."

Chesham took the notes. The scowl on the dark young man's face deepened.

"But you don't mean to let this fellow walk out into Piccadilly after what he's heard to-night?" he cried, turning upon the chief. "He'll go and blab to the police and―"

That white hand waved his protests aside "I have no intention of blabbing to the police." said Chesham coldly. He found himself taking a dislike to this Geoffrey Winterton who was eyeing the girl so possessively. "I am taking this lady to dance, and then―"

He shrugged his shoulders, for he had not the slightest idea what he intended to do after the dance, or where he was going,

"And you promised to dance with me, Helen, this evening," went on Winterton, bitterly.

"I'm dreadfully sorry. Geoffrey," she murmured. (Chesham winced at that "Geoffrey.") "Let's make it another evening."

And with the calm possessiveness of a woman who invariably gets her own way, she manoeuvred Chesham and herself out of the room.

"I DON'T like it, Chief," said Winterton gazing at the departing couple. "You're taking a risk with that fellow Chesham. It's a gambler's risk."

"My dear Geoffrey," replied Mark Mann, "Chesham is a gambler, and one of those gamblers who seems fated to lose. I'll win."

And with a nod of his bald head, and a smile from his shrewd grey eyes, he was piloted by Julian through the doorway.

Left to himself, Geoffrey Winterton lit a cigarette angrily.

SHADED lights splashed rich pools on the shining dance floor. Expensively-gowned women. sophisticated products of Mayfair beauty parlours and determined at all costs to display no emotions whatever, slithered the floor with correctly-garbed men.

Two gentlemen in evening dress had smiled and bowed when Helen Mann entered the hotel. They narrowed their eyes a little as they glimpsed Arthur Chesham. He was a newcomer, but as the escort of Helen Mann he passed scrutiny.

"They're playing a waltz, and I just adore waltzing," said Helen, a moment after they had entered. And with a smile she came into Chesham's arms.

For a young man who had contemplated spending the night on the embankment. Chesham was slightly bewildered. He was not unused to luxurious living. He had had his share of it in his young life. But that it should come so overwhelmingly at the moment when he was looking forward to acute poverty upset his carefully rehearsed plans.

The subtle sway of the waltz as given forth by the best dance band in London, entered his blood. Instinctively his arm tightened upon the slim girl with titian hair who moved so easily in his arms. An exquisite and expensive perfume clung to her. Yet withal he realised that the Mayfair-like beauty was only the outer show of a girl who was frank and without sophistication.

Nothing can be so dangerous to a man as a woman who combines those two qualities— the outward display of sophistication which nevertheless confesses in subtle fashion the unsophistication of the girl within. Before the end of the waltz. Arthur Chesham was completely captivated. The orchestra finished the dance. The bored young things considered it bad form to applaud. Helen and Chesham discovered a small table in a corner.

"I enjoyed that dance," he said.

"You dance well," she replied frankly.

"I hope I'm going to dance lots of times with you," he went on boldly.

"That depends," she said, the slightly rouged lips parted entrancingly.

"Depends upon what?" he asked.

"Whether I see you again after to-night," she said calmly.

"I see." He had to turn his gaze away from that russet-red hair. "You want me to carry on this absurd pretence of being Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia."

There was a burst of hearty laughter, loud enough to cause everyone in that decorous hotel to swivel their heads in its direction. A young man with fair hair seated at a table some yards away was laughing with healthy zest. Obviously he was slightly tipsy, or else enjoying himself. That laugh caused the two mutes in evening dress to appear simultaneously in the doorway. The young man cheerfully grinned In their faces.

The orchestra saved the situation by launching themselves into the soft, rhythmic throb of a foxtrot.

"Of course. I want you to go on with this adventure," said Helen.

"Because you believe in your father and this melodramatic business of the Pirates of Piccadilly, I suppose," said Chesham bitterly.

"Because I believe in you," she said simply.

The grey eyes in that cool, beautiful face were gazing calmly at him. He drew in his breath sharply.

"There are two things I don't understand," he murmured.

"Perhaps I can explain," she said. "Please give me a cigarette."

His fingers trembled a little as he held the match to her. She seemed thrillingly near to him.

"Firstly." he began, "why should those men from Koravia, particularly old Ferenc Jokai, fail to see that I was an impostor. They must have known that I was not the real Prince Serge."

He saw her smile behind the thin veil of cigarette smoke.

"None of them had ever set eyes on Prince Serge," she replied, "except old Jokai, and he saw Prince Serge at the age of eighteen months in the arms of an English nurse. Then came the revolution. The King was killed, and the nurse fled to England, taking the child, Prince Serge, with her. Nobody ever saw her again, or the child. In Koravia the republic was proclaimed, and Jan Neruda became the dictator. But there were a few royalists left, and among them Ferenc Jokai, who never forgot the young prince, who was somewhere in England."

"Which brings me to the second problem," nodded Chesham. "That young prince, grown up, and possibly aware that he is the real heir to the throne of Koravia, must be somewhere watching these strange events."

Helen smothered her face in cigarette smoke.

"The real Prince Serge Lobai did exist," she said.

"Did exist..." he echoed.

"Yes, he died this afternoon just as he reached the Pirates' house in Piccadilly. He died... of starvation."

"Poor devil!" he muttered, involuntarily.

"After much trouble and exhaustive inquiries everywhere Daddy managed to locate the real Prince Serge," went on the girl. "The man was living in a bare room over the Edgware Road. At first the man would have nothing to do with the idea of regaining the throne of Koravia. Said he didn't want it, anyhow. And he was terrified at the thought of being assassinated."

"Assassinated!"

"Yes. He said that the agents of Jan Neruda would not stop at murder to keep the dictator secure. Rumours of a royalist plot had already been heard in Koravia. The real Prince Serge seemed very much concerned about his own skin."

Chesham was discovering that this adventure had more than a farcical side. Sinister shadows― death― had already touched it.

"What happened then?" he asked.

"Daddy at length persuaded Prince Serge to come to Piccadilly and meet the royalists from Koravia. The rendezvous was arranged for this evening. Prince Serge arrived early. He seemed terrified. He had no sooner stepped out of the taxi and entered the Pirates' Club when he collapsed and died."

"It was his body I saw being carried downstairs." whispered Chesham, recalling the moment when he had seen a trio of men descending the staircase arm in arm.

She nodded.

"It― it had to be taken away." she whispered in reply. "Poor Geoffrey had that Job."

Chesham's nerves were taut. It seemed incredible that they should be discussing death and a corpse in this luxurious atmosphere, where the orchestra softly thudded dance melodies.

"Your father must be a very strange and determined man," he said.

"Daddy is a genius," she said simply. There was nothing boastful in the remark. It was to her a statement of fact. "He telephoned to me at Dover. The guests from Koravia were expected at any moment. And the prince was dead. The situation was desperate. I told him I would do something. I met you."

"And so you took a chance―" murmured Chesham.

"It was a big chance," she said, "and for the time being it succeeded. I almost hoped it would go on succeeding to the end. Won't you let it, to please me?"

He gazed at her earnest, pale face, her grey eyes, and the slightly rouged lips. For a moment he was tempted. But he felt he was struggling in deep, engulfing dark waters. Slowly he shook his head.

"Put not your faith in princes," he said quietly, "nor in false princes. I would like to help you. But in playing this part I merely become a puppet to start some bloody revolution in a country that I've never visited, or am likely to visit. And all to get your father possession of a radium mine..."

"There might be a prize, even for you," she said, slowly rising from her chair.

He gazed at her slim loveliness, still hesitating.

"At least, we will dance again," he said, and also rose.

At that moment a waiter carrying a salver on which was a bottle of wine and some glasses moved towards them. Arthur Chesham had the impression of a sallow-faced man peering over the edge of the tray.

Once again that hearty laugh broke into a decorous atmosphere, and the fair-haired young man lurched dangerously against the waiter carrying the salver.

Simultaneously there was a loud report. Chesham experienced the wind of a bullet against his cheek, followed by a loud smack as the lead flattened against the wall behind him. The acrid tang of powder was wafted through those subtle 'perfumes.

The tray and glasses crashed to the ground. The orchestra stopped with startling suddenness. The two mutes in evening dress came swiftly across the dance floor. The sallow-faced waiter disappeared.

"My dear, are you hurt?"

It was Helen's voice, and her cool fingers were clutching his hand.

He shook his head. A sea of faces surrounded them. The powdered masks seemed to have cracked in alarm. A murmur of voices rose.

"Another two inches, and it would have been the end," said Chesham quietly.

"My dear," whispered Helen again.

The sea of faces parted. Riding the waves were the two mutes in evening dress.

"This is very distressing, sir," one began aggressively.

"Very distressing, sir," repeated the other. "Such a thing has never happened at the Bandon before."

"An attempt at murder... most distressing," went on the first.

"The fellow seems to have got clean away," said the second.

"We have telephoned for a detective to be sent over. Let us hope that this distressing affair can be kept out of the newspapers."

Chesham smiled at their joint efforts.

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to order the band to go on playing," he suggested.

"An excellent idea, sir," said the first mute in evening dress. He raised his hand in rapid signal. In instant response the orchestra began again with a foxtrot. The circling sea of faces began to fall away.

"I believe we were going to dance," said Chesham, turning to Helen.

Her face was pale, and there was a scared look in her grey eyes.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Very."

And once again he opened his arms to her.

"But, sir, I must beg of you― " protested the first mute.

"When the detective arrives, send him to me," commanded Chesham. "In the meantime, I wish to dance.''

There was an authority in his tone that caused both men to bow simultaneously to Chesham.

"Yes, sir."

Moving easily, Chesham swung Helen Into the dance. A few of the dancers stared curiously at them. Chesham ignored their gaze.

"What are you going to do?" whispered Helen.

"Don't talk when you're dancing," he reproved her.

THE foxtrot was prolonged. Chesham insisted upon dancing to the end. At last it was over, and he led Helen back to the corner table. A heavily built man in a lounge suit was waiting there.

"I am Detective-Inspector Browne, from Vine Street," he began, "I understand that an attempt has been made on your life here to-night, sir."

"That is so," nodded Chesham, placing a chair in a comfortable position for Helen. "A waiter fired a revolver from beneath a tray. If it hadn't been for a tipsy young man lurching against him at the moment I wouldn't have been here giving you these details... By the way, where is that young man?"

"I didn't hear of any young man, sir," said Detective Browne. "The waiter, I believe, has disappeared. But perhaps we had better begin with the details. Will you give me your name, sir?"

The gaze of the detective was fixed on that blood-red order which Chesham only then realised was still dangling against his shirt front. That order had been worn by the dead prince. He shivered distastefully at the thought, put up his hand, and quickly drew it away from his neck. Then he screwed it in the palm of his hand, and thrust it into his pocket.

"Your name, sir." repeated the detective. Chesham saw Helen's anxious gaze in his direction.

"I am Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia," he said calmly.

He heard a gentle sigh of relief from the girl sitting at his side. She realised that he was determined to go through with the adventure.

5

THE body of a young man, aged 28 to 30, was discovered late last night seated on a bench on the Embankment. A curious feature of the discovery, which was made by a constable, was that the body was garbed in evening dress. A police surgeon who made an examination, gave it as his opinion that the man had been dead for at least six hours. The cause of death was chronic heart disease emphasised by malnutrition. There were no papers on the body which gave a clue to the man's identity, and the tailor's tabs on the evening dress had been carefully cut away. A description of the dead man is being issued, and the body removed to a mortuary to await identification.

Sipping his morning coffee, Arthur Chesham reflected upon this rather sordid item in the newspaper which he had propped on the breakfast tray. Was this unidentified corpse all that remained of the miserable, terror-stricken Prince Serge Lobai, who had staggered into 70a. Piccadilly, only to die? And supposing that the waiter who had fired at him the previous evening at the Bandon Hotel had not been jostled, then perhaps he, Chesham, would be a "body removed to a mortuary to await identification." There were very few people in this world, he sadly reflected, who would care to bother their heads about identifying Arthur Chesham.

"I had rather an exciting evening at the Bandon last night, Scraggs," he said aloud.

"Had you, sir?"

Joseph" Scraggs, black-coated and heavy jawed as usual, was unconcernedly laying out a suit of clothes for Chesham.

"Yes, I was very nearly assassinated," went on Chesham, lighting a cigarette. "A waiter fired a revolver at me, and just missed."

"That must 'ave been awkward, sir." Scraggs was apparently unimpressed.

"And I'm not telling you this because I was tight last night," went on Chesham, determined to probe the man's mystery.

"I know you wasn't tight, sir," replied Scraggs, pursing his lips with a professional air at the crease in Chesham's trousers.

"Oh, and how did you know?" demanded Chesham.

"I heard you come in, sir. Also Miss Helen. You said good night, and went straight to your rooms."

"You don't miss much, Scraggs."

"No, sir, thanks to the chief. He trained me."

"I see. I suppose there's no particular objection to my taking a stroll in Piccadilly if I desire it?"

"None at all, sir," replied the respectful Scraggs, casting a final approving glance at the clothes he had laid out. "None at all. But I was to remind you that the Scotland Yard man will be here in ten minutes."

"Scotland Yard man!" Chesham was startled.

"Yes, sir. A detective, sir. I almost forgot to tell you."

Scraggs was undoubtedly unique. Chesham tried to keep calm.

"May I ask what this Scotland Yard man is coming to see me about?" he asked.

Scraggs shook his head.

"There I'm afraid you've got me, sir.

But I imagine it must be about that little matter of the attempted assassination at the Bandon last night."

"Little matter!"

"Of course, those sort of things are liable to 'appen when one is workin' for the chief," went on the imperturbable Scraggs. "At the same time you can't expect Scotland Yard to ignore an attempted assassination, particularly when it 'appens at the Bandon and, above all, to His Royal Highness Prince Serge Lobai. Scotland Yard telephoned last night that they were sending someone from the special branch to interview the prince this mornin'."

"Then you did know about the attempted assassination?"

"Lor' lumme, of course, sir. We got a telephone message from the Bandon last night, sir, within a few minutes of the affair happening, sir."

Chesham considered the heavy jaw of the redoubtable Scraggs.

"I'm beginning to have a profound respect for the Pirates, and for you in particular, Scraggs."

"Thank you, sir." There was not a vestige of a smile on the grave face. Nothing could break the determined line of that jaw. Scraggs accepted the compliment as his due.

Somewhere in the distance a bell shrilled. "That'll be the man from Scotland Yard, I expect, sir," went on Scraggs. "Shall I show him in?"

"Do you think I ought to receive him in my dressing-gown?" asked Chesham.

Scraggs considered the point.

"No 'arm, sir. No 'arm at all. And the gown is a bit dressy, ain't it? P'raps it'll impress him, sir."

"P'raps it will," grinned Chesham. "Show him in, Scraggs."

Left to himself for a moment, Chesham considered the situation. He was now deeply involved in this impersonation of Prince Serge Lobai. It was too late to withdraw. Or, rather, here was his final opportunity. If he made a clean breast of everything to the man from Scotland Yard, and told the story of this strange introduction to the Pirates of Piccadilly, he could walk out a free man. But there was Helen. He had not seen Helen since that moment when, with shining eyes, she had left him. But her farewell had been a tremulous whisper from her lips.

"Thank you, ever so much!"

THE door of the room opened.

"Detective-Inspector Evans, of the Special Branch to see you, sir," growled the voice of Scraggs.

Chesham looked up. A small, but agile man in a lounge suit came forward. A slight, sandy moustache did not entirely conceal a grim and determined mouth.

"Thank you. Scraggs, that will do."

Scraggs, the perfect servant, bowed and departed.

"Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia?" queried the detective.

Chesham nodded.

"Won't you sit down?"

The detective seated himself cautiously in one of the steel chairs. His gaze roved quickly round the room. He shuffled his rather heavy boots and began:

"It was distinctly awkward, that affair at the Bandon last night, your Highness."

"Distinctly awkward," repeated Chesham. "Have you found your man?"

Detective Evans shook his head.

"No, I'm afraid Vine Street missed him. We were looking up, his record in the Special Branch to-day. He was a registered alien, from Koravia. I suppose you have no reason to believe that the attempted murder was anything but political?"

His questioning eyes were fixed on Chesham. But that individual returned a bland smile.

"What other motive could there be?" he countered.

Detective Evans looked down at his shuffling feet.

"That is my real reason for calling this morning, your Highness. You must understand that the Special Branch of Scotland Yard has to interest itself in all aliens in this country."

The emphasis on the "all" did not escape Chesham.

"Naturally," he returned. "An exiled prince is as much an alien as... er... a Koravian waiter."

"Exactly," nodded the detective. "And I wish your Highness to understand that we at Scotland Yard are only concerned that the peace of this country shall not be broken."

Chesham's smile became more bland.

"I realise," he said, "that you are being very diplomatic because you have something unpleasant to say. Well, out with it."

Detective Evans reddened.

"You will permit me to say," he remarked bluntly, "that the love affairs of Prince Serge Lobai have received a good deal of attention in the Sunday newspapers."

"Have they?" remarked Chesham, innocently.

"We realise at Scotland Yard that much of it is pure scandal," went on the detective painfully, "and so long as your Highness breaks no laws of this country it is no concern of ours."

"Thank you," replied Chesham.

"But there is your wife," went on Evans. For the moment, Chesham was thrown off his guard.

"I beg your pardon―?" he faltered.

"Your wife," went on the detective remorselessly, "called at Scotland Yard last night. I interviewed her myself."

"And― and what had she to say?" asked Chesham, fighting for time to consider this amazing development.

"She had heard, by some extraordinary means, of the attack on you at the Bandon. She said she did not know that you were in London. In fact, she had not heard from you since you left her six months ago. She begged us to let her know your address

The detective paused significantly.

"And―" encouraged the now agitated Chesham.

"Naturally, it is not our business to give information to inquiring women," went on Detective Evans tonelessly. "We told her that if we had any information we would communicate with her."

"Thank you," breathed Chesham.

"But that visit of your wife," went on the detective remorselessly, "suggested a possible and not entirely improbable explanation of the attack on you last night."

"I should like to hear the explanation," said Chesham.

"As you were with a lady at this dance, as you have also had several affairs with ladies both here and on the Continent, pardon me being so blunt, your Highness― might not the waiter have been concerned in revenging some insult on a woman?"

Chesham laughed, but it was a wry laugh.

"A possible theory, Inspector." he replied, "but on this occasion entirely improbable. My love affairs, so notorious as you say"―(Detective Evans blushed)―"have always been concerned with ladies who have not the― er― advantage of Koravian birth. And the waiter, the potential assassin, is a Koravian― as you yourself told me."

The detective stroked his chin.

"Yes, that's true, your Highness. I hadn't thought of that. And, of course, your wife is English."

"The devil she is," murmured Chesham to himself.

"Then I think we can accept the theory that the crime was a political one," said the detective.

"I shall be obliged if you will," insisted Chesham.

Once again those heavy boots shuffled.

"We realise, your Highness, that you are the natural claimant of the throne of Koravia. We also hear that your former country is in a state of unrest. In view, therefore, of the attack last night we have taken the liberty of posting two men to guard you."

"Two men to guard me!" repeated the astonished Chesham.

The detective shrugged his shoulders.

"They will be unobtrusive," he said. "It is a form of police work in which the Special Branch has had a good deal of experience. I must ask your Highness not to attempt to evade these two men."

The tone of Detective-Inspector Evans had become bolder. Chesham faced him squarely.

"I must thank you for the proposed guard," he said, "but I really feel that it is unnecessary."

"Nevertheless," went on the detective quietly, "we must insist. Your Highness ought to know that the Foreign Office are not entirely ignorant of the fact that a royalist plot is being hatched in this country for the overthrow of the present regime in Koravia."

"This is most thrilling and interesting news." said Chesham, blandly.

But the detective ignored the irony.

"We know that certain notorious royalists from Koravia were in London last night," he went on. "Two of them left Croydon this morning by private plane. You may or may not have met these gentlemen, your Highness" —it was the detective who had now taken an ironic pose— "but we do know that the lady whom you danced with at the Bandon last night had recently spent a week in Koravia."

"I'm beginning to have a profound respect for Scotland Yard," bowed Chesham.

"Under these circumstances," went on the detective, "I am requested by the Chief Commissioner to inform you that the Government of this country does not permit foreign revolutions to be hatched in their midst. Should there be any definite suspicion that your Highness is engaged in a plot to overthrow the regime in Koravia, we shall be forced to take action, and your Highness is liable to be expelled from these shores."

There was silence for a few moments.

Chesham had drawn himself up. But the' detective was not to be deterred. He had delivered his message, and his small, agile figure displayed a democratic contempt for this Middle Europe princeling.

"I think we understand each other," nodded Chesham. "Is that all?"

"That is all."

"Then I will wish you good .morning."

Chesham pressed a bell. The heavy jawed Scraggs appeared. Detective Evans gave a quick, shrewd glance at the man-servant, but Scraggs stood the scrutiny well.

"This way, sir," he said to the detective. "Thank you."

LEFT to himself. Chesham lit a cigarette reflectively. This adventure was becoming a tortuous one. Apparently, the dead man who had been found on the Embankment had possessed a wife who was now earnestly searching for him. A wife! She would complicate the affair completely. The chief ought to be told. The idea came suddenly to Chesham.

Where was Mark Mann?

As though in answer to his thoughts, a voice broke in upon the silence of that luxurious room.

"Excellent, my dear Chesham. Excellent."

It was the voice of the chief, but Chesham was still alone. He stared at the door. It was closed.

"I'm speaking from my own room," went on the voice of the chief. "Being crippled with arthritis I find the use of microphones in this house a real necessity. If you will walk to the table against the wall of your room, slip your hand beneath the surface, and pull out what appears to be a ledge, you will find the microphone that leads to my room."

As the voice had spoken, so Chesham had acted. A few steps, a fumbling of the hand, and the complete microphone set beneath the table was revealed.

"So you heard every word of that conversation?" said Chesham, speaking into the microphone.

An assenting chuckle was the reply.

"Every word. And I really must compliment you on the manner in which you gave away nothing to that detective."

"There was nothing I could tell him," growled Chesham.

"Oh. yes, there was," chuckled the voice. "You could have told him that you were a fraud, that the real Prince Serge Lobai was dead, and lying in a mortuary unidentified, that you were only Arthur Chesham, a young man without means playing a part at my command."

"And supposing I had?" queried Chesham.

"I should have been disappointed― bitterly disappointed," was the reply. "I deliberately left you to yourself because I felt that you would help us. Definitely, you are now one of the Pirates of Piccadilly. I have much pleasure in declaring you elected. You won't find me a hard taskmaster."

"At the same time," interposed Chesham, "I have no particular desire to be assassinated, which seems certain if I continue this role of Prince Serge."

"There are two men from Scotland Yard specially posted to protect you," chuckled the voice in the microphone.

"Yes. and there is a woman, said to be my wife," suddenly remembered Chesham.

"What of her?"

"That, I admit, was startling news to me," murmured Mark Mann. "We must find the woman. She must be made to keep quiet. Perhaps you ought to meet her?"

Chesham snorted.

"That is the last thing I desire to do."

"But a thwarted woman is dangerous." "Maybe. I prefer the potential assassin." Again there was a chuckle, and Mark Mann resumed:

"My daughter has interposed with the suggestion that you might like a gallop in Rotten Row. Can you ride?"

"Rather," replied Chesham with enthusiasm.

"Then I'll have some riding kit sent to your room at once, which reminds, me, I'm going into the Burlington Arcade this morning to buy a necktie. I'll take the liberty of sending a tailor to see you. As Prince Serge Lobai I think your wardrobe needs to be rather more extensive than it is at present. We can afford to be a little luxurious."

"I only hope your radium mine justifies the gamble." laughed Chesham.

"I think it will." replied the voice. "And now I'm going to disconnect. I hope you have a pleasant gallop―"

The words trailed away in a mutter of fading tones. The microphones were dead. With a flick of his hand Chesham pushed them beneath the table.

He whistled joyously at the thought of the gallop in Rotten Row with Helen.

6

HELEN MANN'S cheeks were flushed— her grey eyes shining. As she leaned from her saddle, and gently patted the neck of her horse, she looked healthily beautiful. Certainly Arthur Chesham did not attempt to conceal his admiration.

"A divine morning, isn't it?" she said. Her lips were slightly parted as though In greedy delight at the world.

"Absolutely perfect." replied Chesham, pulling in his horse, which seemed to be restive in the spring air. "It's nearly noon, and nobody yet has tried to assassinate me," he added with a wry smile.

She laughed, and tucked a stray lock of the titian hair beneath her hat.

"Nevertheless, we're being watched," she said. "I've noticed two men, one at each end of Rotten Row, who stare at us deliberately each time we pass."

"Gentlemen from Scotland Yard," commented Chesham. "They're there to protect His Royal Highness, Prince Serge Lobai. I'm not allowed to roam about London now without a bodyguard."

"Is it inconvenient?" she asked.

"Very," he said, looking into those grey eyes.

A policeman, mounted on a white horse, gently thudded behind them.

"I'm getting tired of this," said Chesham, suddenly. "Let's give the groom our horses and stroll through the park."

"Good." she nodded. "I'll race you to the end of the Row."

A sharp kick from her riding-boots, and the horse sprang from the walk into an easy gallop. In a few seconds she had left Chesham yards behind. He also kicked his heels into his horse and began to follow. In a few moments they were thudding along the Row with the mounted policeman labouring behind.

He drew in his horse at the end of the Row, a good ten yards behind her. She was already dismounting and handing the horse over to the groom as his own foam flecked beast arrived. She waited for him as he dismounted in turn.

"And now, let's go and look at the tulips," she said. "They're always at their best in Hyde Park. Tulips excite me."

He laughed. "You must find life very wonderful," he said.

She glanced up at him from beneath her hat. "Why?"

"Riding, dancing, looking at tulips, travelling, and inveigling young men into strange adventures after meeting them in the Golden Arrow train," he suggested.

She laughed in turn.

"And why not make life an adventure," she said. "Some people seem to go on living for no reason that they can discover within themselves. I go on living because I want to live. Life is so exciting. Look as the brilliant red of those tulips for example. Isn't it worth living just for to-day to see that?"

He looked at the tulips, and for some absurd reason felt jealous of them. Mentally he dubbed himself a fool, and a fool in love. She seemed to draw closer to him as she gazed upon that loveliness. Chesham was about to babble something inconsequential when his eye caught a glimpse of something else.

Two burly-looking men were also standing there. But their gaze was not directed towards the tulips. They eyed Chesham in a thoughtful, even protective, fashion.

The men from Scotland Yard!

"They're spoiling everything," protested Chesham, as, Helen turned to walk away. "I can't even stop and look at tulips without them suspecting something."

"I don't suppose they're the sort of people who are excited at the sight of tulips," laughed Helen.

They made their way slowly past the gigantic Achilles statue, and along that park-fringed road, where shining, expensive cars purred majestically. A few people, like lost souls in the Elysian Fields, sat in dismal isolation on the little green chairs.

"All with their backs to the tulips," commented Chesham. "Some people, you see, have forgotten beauty."

"That's because life is grey and beastly to them," she said, with a sigh. "It can be like that when you have no money and no friends."

"It was like that when I stepped into the Golden Arrow train at Dover, the other afternoon," he said. "You see, I had no money and no friends."

"Was it as bad as that?" she asked. He nodded.

"Life very often is as bad as that. One can't gaze ecstatically at tulips when one's stomach is hungry."

She sighed again.

"You seem to hate my tulips." He shook his head.

"No, it's not hatred. Just a bad conscience. I feel uncomfortable at the sight of beauty in a world that is very definitely, ugly." He flushed a little. "I suppose that is why I feel uncomfortable with you."

"Uncomfortable with me― why?" she asked, in surprise.

"Because you are really so beautiful," he said gently. He saw her cheeks go white suddenly. "Perhaps I ought not to have said that," he ended lamely.

"I should have been disappointed If you hadn't," she replied, with the subtle suggestion of a smile.

A short silence followed. They had been walking steadily and had neared the Marble Arch entrance to the Park. Motor cars were swirling in and out of the iron gates from Oxford Street. The scent of petrol battled with the scent of grass. And the petrol won.

The usual nondescript sober-garbed people were grouped at Hyde Park Corner. They were listening to the passionate declamations of speakers perched upon little wooden pedestals. The drab crowds formed dirty little pools in the bright spring sunshine. Fierce, raucous voices came floating over the black pools of bowler hats and caps.

"...revolution, bloody revolution, that's what we're going to have in this country. I wonder if the people of this country realise they're sitting on a heap of dynamite. Yes, and it's ready to blow up; ready to blow us all to―"

The voice was passionate and explosive in itself.

"Now this is really interesting," smiled Chesham, and pressed forward.

It was a hungry face. All these demagogues had hungry faces. This one was streaked with the oil and sweat of some industrial shop. The mouth, opened wide, displayed blackened teeth. But the man, by his passionate intensity, held the crowd. Chesham found himself rubbing shoulders with the group.

"...You see 'em walking Into theatres and restaurants," went on the agitator, "well fed, over-fed, pampered men and women. Oh, yes, they're patriotic. They believe in royalty. They'll stand up when the band plays some national anthem. It's the only time some of 'em ever do stand. Let's teach 'em to stand when the band plays 'The Red Flag'."

The press of men around Chesham became tighter. He suddenly realised that Helen was not at his side. Instead, there were several big shoulders, including two pairs of burly ones that he recognised instinctively. The men from Scotland Yard. They had pushed their way into the crowd behind him.

WITH a curse, he turned

to go. He had lost all interest in the agitator. But the crowd seemed to have thickened. He trod on someone's toes.

"Ow!" cried a little man, a pathetic example of a respectable citizen lured into listening to revolutionary, talk. "Can't you see where you're goin'?"

" 'Oo yer pushin'?" demanded another voice.

Chesham determinedly pushed his way through. For some reason he had suddenly become concerned about Helen. He burst through the press of sober-garbed men into the thronged spaciousness of the Marble Arch entrance.

There was no sign of Helen. A few moments ago she had been standing at his side. He glanced round wildly. She had disappeared as completely as though the macadam had split and engulfed her. Ceaselessly the traffic swirled through the iron gates.

His gaze fell to the ground. Then, at that moment, fear crowded upon him. Lying there was a single glove, a riding-glove that he remembered Helen was wearing as they rode along Rotten Row. He stooped down and picked it up. It was on the edge of the pavement.

A thousand conjectures crowded his mind. All dominant was the fear that something had happened to Helen, something dreadful. Even as he stood on the edge of the pavement, holding that slightly-perfumed glove in his hand, he was conscious of the two burly shadows, eyeing him continuously.

Without hesitation he strolled up to them. "You're from Scotland Yard, aren't you?" he asked.

One of the men reddened.

"I think you've made a mistake."

"Don't pretend, confound you!" snarled Chesham. "You are from Scotland Yard."

"Yes, Your Highness," confessed one of the men.

"There was a lady with me a few minutes ago," said Chesham.

Both men nodded.

"Did you see her leave this spot?"

One of the men scratched his head.

"I saw a limousine drive up here, sir. and two men got out and approached the lady. In a few moments she walked to the car with them, stepped in, and drove away."

"And you didn't stop them!" stormed Chesham.

"Why should I?" replied the man. "Our job is to shadow you, not your lady friends. Is anything wrong?"

"Wrong!" stormed Chesham. "The lady has been kidnapped-that's what's wrong. You're both a couple of damned fools."

And he turned his back on them.

"...Damned fools, that's what we are," the agitator concluded, thumping the ledge of his wooden rostrum. "So long as we tolerate this rotten state of affairs, so long will we be the sport of clever..."

But Chesham did not hear him. He had signalled to a taxi.

"Drive to 70a, Piccadilly," he commanded, "as fast as you can."

As he swirled away he noticed the two burly men also signalling frantically to a taxi.

7

"I WANT to see the chief!"

Chesham's tone was peremptory. So much so, that Julian, the flunkey, raised his eyebrows.

"I'm afraid the chief has given orders that he is not to be disturbed."

Chesham brushed all opposition aside. "Tell him he's got to see me," he commanded.

For a moment the flunkey eyed the fair-haired young man. Then the blaze in those blue eyes decided him.

"Very good, sir," he surrendered, and led the way up the carpeted stairs.

He stopped outside the door of a room, and knocked.

"Go away!" said a testy voice from within. "I'm busy."

The flunkey shrugged his shoulders and gazed helplessly at Chesham. But the young man did not hesitate. He turned the handle of the door and entered.

It was a strange scene upon which he plunged. Mark Mann was ensconced in a huge arm-chair, carefully deliberating over a number of violently-colored and striped ties that were dangling from a stand before him. The former medical student, Geoffrey Winterton, was lounging by the electric fire obviously bored by the proceedings. The chief ignored the intrusion.

"I think I like the purple and yellow," he murmured, fingering the tie with a sort of lustful desire. "Or do you think I ought to wear this, Geoffrey?" he asked, fingering another.

Scowling at Chesham, the dark young man replied wearily:

"Of course you can wear it, sir. But it's old Cheltonian."

Mark Mann sighed.

"Why have all your cursed public schools captured the best ties? There's nothing left for a gentleman to wear."

Then he looked up at Chesham.

"You seem in a great hurry, young man. What's the matter? Have Scotland Yard decided to arrest you?"

"This is no time for joking," said Chesham breathlessly.

"It certainly is not," agreed the chief, turning his eyes regretfully away from the ties. "Well, let me hear the worst."

"Helen― your daughter― has been kidnapped."

It was as though Chesham had performed a miracle with those words. The figure, crippled by arthritis, in the armchair, stretched out his white hands and almost rose to his feet by sheer force of will. The grey eyes kindled dangerously. Then he fell back, a trickle of sweat at his brow.

"Young man, you're behaving like a fool," he said weakly. "What makes you think she's been kidnapped?"

Chesham felt like shouting in his impatience.

"We stood for a few moments listening to the agitators in Hyde Park," he explained. "When I turned my head again she had gone."

Something like a smile crept over the face of the chief.

"Helen is like that," he nodded. "She suddenly sees something she wants to buy and disappears into the shop. You'll find she'll be back for luncheon, young man."

"She was forced into a motor car by two men," went on Chesham sternly. "And in her agitation she dropped this―"

He held out the glove to the man in the Chair.

The chief took it in his hand. His soft fingers seemed to caress it. His head drooped wearily.

"Who told you that she had stepped into a motor car?" he asked.

"The two Scotland Yard men who were shadowing me."

"And they did nothing to prevent it?"

"They said their only concern was with me."

Mark Mann sagged in his chair.

"You fool! You damned fool!"

The voice, strident with unrepressed passion, rang in the room. But it was not the chief who had spoken. It was the dark-haired young man, Geoffrey Winterton, former medical student, who with clenched hands was advancing upon Chesham.

"What the devil do you mean?" snarled Chesham, turning upon him.

"A fine, romantic fake prince you are," sneered Winterton. "You take Helen for a gallop in Hyde Park and then turn your back while a couple of crooks calmly kidnap her. Better get back to your fool gambling at Monte Carlo. It's about all you're fit for―"

"If you mean to insinuate―" began Chesham.

"Shut up, both of you!"

The snapped command came from that figure in the chair, and both young men obeyed it. They instinctively relaxed from their tense attitudes. Mark Mann was still caressing that glove with his fingers, and his white face seemed to have grown years older within the past two minutes.

There was a short silence.

"What's the time?" asked the chief.

Geoffrey Winterton consulted his wrist-watch.

"Three minutes to one," he replied.

The chief nodded.

"If Helen does not arrive by one o'clock — she promised to wheel me into luncheon herself at that hour— then... then (his voice came near to breaking from its even tone)... then I shall know that something has happened to her. Until one o'clock you will both oblige by helping me to choose a tie from this distracting array before me. Now, Chesham, tell me which one would you wear?"

There was a suspicion of tears in those grey eyes as he asked the question. Chesham marvelled at the self-control, the determination which shone through the tears. The news about Helen was the worst blow that he could have received. But until he was certain, until one o'clock, he refused to discuss it.

"I'm afraid I possess a poor taste in ties," confessed Chesham, conscious of the modest spotted Oxford tie that he was wearing.

"I'm afraid so, too," sighed the chief, gazing once again at the purple and yellow striped monstrosity. But his gaze did not linger. He turned towards the door as though he had heard footsteps, and expected to see the frank, beautiful face of Helen appear.

"I think I shall choose the yellow and purple," he said monotonously. "It's the sort of tie I like and―"

Even as he spoke, a clock struck one. Above the faint roar of the Piccadilly traffic, the stroke pulsated through the room. With a sudden gesture, Mark Mann swept the whole array of ties to the ground.

"You're right, young man," he said to Chesham. "They've got her."

"Who can it be?" asked Chesham. The chief shrugged his shoulders.

"The enemy," he retorted briefly.

"But who is the enemy?" persisted Chesham. "Is it Jan Neruda, the dictator?"

"Who can tell?" said the chief in a tired voice. "Whoever it may be I am beginning to realise that we've underestimated his abilities. Geoffrey, give me the microphone!"

The dark young man, who had remained sullenly silent, carried a small cabinet with a trailing flex over to the figure in the armchair. Mark Mann touched a switch and spoke into the box.

"Julian!"

"Yes, Chief."

The voice of the flunkey squeaked into the room through the instrument.

"Call in the three blind mice at once!" commanded Mark Mann.

"Yes, Chief."

The switch was snapped back.

"The three blind mice!" echoed Chesham with an air of bewilderment.

Mark Mann permitted a tired smile to cross his face.

"I suppose it sounds fantastic. But the three blind mice are really three blind men. You may have seen them. Each has a little tin can into which the charitable drop coppers. Yes, and they're really blind. They are my three spies."

"Three blind men as spies," said Chesham. "That really sounds more fantastic than ever."

"But it isn't," retorted the chief. "Because they have lost the use of their eyes each of these men has learned to use his ears. They see nothing, but they hear a lot. And what they hear they translate in the darkness of their minds into something that is really interesting. They can distinguish sound and capture conversation and its tones more acutely than a musician analysing a symphony. Yes, I think you'll find, young man, that the three blind mice hear more than people with eyes in their heads."

A knock came at the door.

"Ah, here they are. Open the door, Geoffrey!"

The dark young man crossed the room and flung open the door. There entered a shuffling procession of three men. They were each garbed in the manner of theeir kind― a multitude of ragged coats muffling their meagre bodies. Each wore a brass plate dangling by a chain from their necks. It was their insignia. "Blind," it announced, in cut-out letters.

"You sent for us, Chief?" quavered the first of the trio.

They unhesitatingly grouped themselves in front of the crippled figure in the chair.

"Yes, I want your reports," commanded Mark Mann. "Betts, you begin. Heard anyone talking about Koravia or Prince Serge Lobai?"

Betts, who had led the procession into the room, nodded eagerly.

"Two coppers from Vine Street, who passed me talked about the shooting at the Bandon Hotel last night."

"How do you know they were policemen?" inquired Chesham.

The blind man turned his sightless eyes upon him.

"How do I know that you're wearing riding boots and been on a horse in Rotten Row?" he replied. "By the way you walk, of course, and the smell of a horse that still sticks to you."

Chesham reddened.

"Don't interrupt!" snapped the chief. "Go on, Betts."

"The coppers had their own idea of why someone tried to shoot Prince Serge. They said the prince was mixed up with too many ladies, and that sooner or later some tough guy would give it to 'im."

The quavering voice ceased.

"Anything more?" asked Mark Mann. The blind man shook his head.

"Plenty more interesting talk," he commented, "but nothin' more about the prince."

The chief turned to the second blind man.

"And now it's your turn, Tonks," he said. "Heard anything interesting?"

There came a series of sharp nods from the blind beggar.

"Yus, guv'nor. Two fellers came out of the Ritz about nine o'clock― young fellers they were by their tread― and they also were talkin' about the shootin' last night. Laughin', too. One of 'em said: "Well, the waiter made a hash of it.' 'Yes,' said the other, who'd got a foreign accent, 'he's a fool. We've got to get him out of the country as quickly as possible.' 'Who was the girl with the prince?' asked the first. .Don't know,' replied the other. 'But I'm going to find out. The way he danced with her last night I should say he was crazy about her.' "

"Pah! This is mushy talk," broke in Geoffrey Winterton angrily. He scowled at Chesham.

"Go on, Tonks!" commanded the chief.

"There's nothing more to tell, guv'nor." wheezed the blind man. "The two fellers got into a taxi and ordered the driver to take 'em to the Koravian Embassy."

"The Koravian Embassy!"

Mark Mann's face was grim as he muttered the words. Then he turned to the third man.

"And you, White Eyes: did you hear anything?"

The blind man, whose filmy eyes gave him that horrible name, nodded a wise, grizzled head.

"Two young fellers passed me at ten minutes past eleven this morning. Probably the same young fellers that Tonks heard. One of 'em said, 'There's Prince Serge riding with a girl.' 'The same girl,' said the other. 'Helen Mann.' 'Where've you parked the car?' asked the first. 'Near enough, if it's wanted,' said the other. Then the first said, 'All right, let's follow them. But be careful of those Scotland Yard men.' Then they passed. That's all I can tell you, Chief."

"It's enough," said Mark Mann wearily. "All right, get back to your pitches. See that they get paid downstairs, Geoffrey."

Winterton nodded, and opened the door. "Come on, you fellows," he called.

The Three Blind Mice shuffled after him. As soon as the door closed, Chesham walked over to the armchair in which sat the crippled chief.

"Chief"― and it was the first time he had used the expression― "I can't tell you what a fool I feel over this business. For myself I don't care a damn. I'm prepared to play this role of Prince Serge until the end. And, if I'm to be assassinated, well, I must accept it as part of the job. But to have Helen mixed up in this business is a different matter. I'm responsible for letting those damned scoundrels get their hands on her this morning. I know I've blundered badly. I'm willing to do anything to get her back here again."

The feeble white hand stretched out and patted the arm of Chesham.

"That's a long speech and rather a nice one." said Mark Mann. "I can't blame you. I blame myself."

"For Helen?"

Mark Mann nodded.

"She was in this business long before you were. She had just returned from Koravia when she met you. She was keen on the adventure from the start, and I, like a fool, let her go headlong into it. My little Helen."

There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. Savagely, Chesham lit a cigarette.

"If only we could do something," he muttered.

"We've got to think—and think hard." said Mark Mann. "It's no use whining when we've lost the first move in the game."

EVEN as he spoke, a telephone shrilled its summons into the room.

"Answer it, will you?" nodded Mark

Mann, indicating the instrument on a small table.

Mechanically, Chesham took hold of the receiver.

"Hello?"

Then a look of incredulous delight spread over his face, for a calm but girlish voice had spoken.

"Is that Prince Serge?"

Chesham swivelled round on the chief. "It's Helen, speaking at the other end of the wire," he said.

"This is Helen Mann speaking," confirmed the voice. Chesham was thrilled at the sound of it.

"We've been worried to death about you, Helen," he shouted. "Where are you?"

There was silence for a moment.

"Where are you?" repeated Chesham, anxiously.

"In the Koravian Embassy," replied Helen.

Chesham smothered the instrument with his hand. He turned to the chief.

"She says she's in the Koravian Embassy."

Mark Mann, whose face had lit up at the beginning of this strange telephone conversation, slipped back into his chair with the grey look of death in his features. A groan escaped from his lips.

"They're cursed clever," he muttered. "Go on talking with her. Is she all right?"

"Yes, I'm all right― for the present," was Helen's calm reply to Chesham's question. "But I'm to tell you that I'm a prisoner here and likely to remain so."

"What rot!" exploded Chesham. "This is London in the 20th century. One can't have prisoners in embassies. Where is the Koravian Embassy? I'll come round in a taxi and bring you back home."

"It's in Park Lane," replied Helen, and there was a weary but anxious note in her voice, "But it's useless you coming now. This house is Koravian territory and possesses diplomatic privileges."

"I see." stormed Chesham. "You've been kidnapped."

Silence for a moment.

"Yes, I've been kidnapped," came the response.

Once again Chesham smothered the instrument with his hand and repeated the conversation to Mark Mann.

"Ask Helen what they want for ransom." said the chief in a tired voice. "I might have reckoned on this move."

"Helen. Are those blackguards putting you up to ransom?"

"Yes," she replied.

"And what's the price of your freedom?"

"They ask only that Prince Serge shall call for me. There is to be a reception at the Koravian Embassy to-morrow night. A card of invitation will be sent to Prince Serge. Should his Highness desire to rescue me, he can do so by accepting the invitation and attending the reception in person."

Helen was obviously repeating phrases dictated to her. Chesham caught the mutter of words from the room where she spoke.

"Tell me, Helen." he exclaimed. "Are they treating you badly?"

A short silence, and then:

"No. For the present they're treating me with every consideration."

"Then tell them I'm coming to the Koravian Embassy to take you away, and heaven help any man who dares to try to stop me. D'you hear me, Helen? Tell them!"

He heard, as though far away, Helen repeat his words. There came the sound of laughter, men's laughter, which maddened him. He turned again to storm into the telephone. But Helen's cool voice silenced him.

"That is all I'm permitted to say. Tell Daddy not to worry. Au revoir!"

And the line was dead.

Chesham almost flung the telephone against the wall. Then he moved decisively towards the door.

"Where are you going?"

The peremptory tone of the chief checked him.

"To the Koravian Embassy, of course, at once. They can't do things like this in England."

"Young man, don't be a fool," said the chief, raising a restraining hand. "The Koravians can do just exactly what they like in their own Embassy, as other nationals have done. It isn't the first time an embassy in London has been guilty of kidnapping. Haven't you heard of Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese revolutionist who was kidnapped in the streets of London and kept in the Chinese Embassy for several days."

"Yes, but Helen is not a Koravian," protested Chesham.

"But she's in the Koravian Embassy, and they'll blandly tell anyone who makes inquiries that they've never heard of Helen Mann, and have no interest in her. They can do just what they like for the moment. You won't be able to persuade the Special Service branch of Scotland Yard to raid the Embassy."

"But something's got to be done," said Chesham, in agony.

"Naturally," nodded the chief. "And at the moment our friends in the Koravian Embassy are expecting you to do the very thing you seem determined upon—to rush round in a taxi and demand an entrance."

"They'd have to let me in," said Chesham.

"They'd be delighted to see you walk in. Once you entered that doorway it would be the last that London would see of you. They might murder you, there and then. Except for spoiling one of their luxurious rugs I imagine they would consider it the best solution of the problem. On the other hand, they would probably make you a prisoner, release Helen, and inform the two Scotland Yard men who shadow you so fondly that Prince Serge Lobai had decided to place himself entirely at the disposal of the Koravian Embassy. And perhaps your body would be picked up in the Channel having been pushed out of an aeroplane while flying at two thousand feet. Now, if you want to move according to these Koravian desires, go and get your taxi, young man."

And Mark Mann slumped back dismally into his armchair.

"In the meantime, then, Helen has to be left in the hands of these damned black-guards," said Chesham, sarcastically.

"I'm her father," replied Mark Mann, simply. "And I wouldn't have had this happen for fifty thousand pounds. But she won't come to any harm before to-morrow evening. That gives us a good twenty-four hours to think out a plan."

"Then you have an idea?" cried Chesham with relief.

"Not a ghost of one." replied the chief, dismally. "But suppose you run away and have lunch. I want to think."

"Do you think I could eat!" protested Chesham.

A white finger touched a bell beside the arm-chair. Julian promptly appeared in the doorway.

"Is luncheon ready, Julian?" asked the chief.

"Yes, sir."

"Then take Prince Serge away and give him a bottle of that '98 Volnay with his food. Yes, you'll need it, young man," he added to Chesham. "You're going to have all the violent action that your clenched lists are aching for― after lunch."

And, with a wave of his hand, he dismissed them.

THE two Scotland Yard men detailed to watch Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia scratched their heads doubtfully. They had followed their man from the house in Piccadilly, panted after him as he lunged across Piccadilly Circus, and. despite the traffic dangers, subsequently trailed him along Whitehall.

"P'raps he's going to visit the Houses of Parliament." suggested one of the men, 'breathing heavily after his quick walk.

'But I wish he'd take a taxi. It would be easier to follow him."

"He's in a burry, and that's why he's walking." decided the other,

But, although he was right, he was unprepared for what followed. Prince Serge had walked deliberately through those ornamental gates, and disappeared into Scotland Yard itself.

The two shadowers were left to scratch their heads and wonder.

"I wish to see Detective-Inspector Evans, of the Special Branch." demanded Chesham of the first uniformed constable he encountered.

"Yes, sir. What name?"

"Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia."

The constable sniffed. He didn't believe it. Nevertheless, he took the message, and returned a few minutes later.

"This way, sir.''

After being swished in a lift to one of the top floors of the building. Chesham was shown into a little room which, with the second-hand furniture and curtains heavily scented with tobacco, was the office of Detective-Inspector Evans.

The little man was seated behind a desk as Chesham entered. He indicated a broken but comfortable-looking arm-chair.

"Take a seat. Your Highness. I didn't expect a return visit so soon."

Chesham sat down.

"A girl, an English girl, has been kidnapped in London," he said.

Detective Evans could not resist a smile. "Aren't you exaggerating, Prince Serge? In any case, how does this concern you?"

"It concerns me inasmuch as the lady is my friend."

Detective Evans calmly opened a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Chesham.

"But even so―" he said soothingly.

"And the lady was with me when she was kidnapped. It was the same lady who was with me last night when that fanatical fool tried to murder me," went on Chesham.

"Helen Mann?"

"Helen Mann."

The detective leaned back in his chair. He had just realised that Prince Serge was deadly serious, that the man was tense with anxiety, and that only in sheer desperation had he walked into Scotland Yard. He reached out for a pencil and a pad of paper.

"Where was the lady kidnapped?"

"In Hyde Park, near the Marble Arch entrance. Two men drove up in a limousine while I listened to some flamboyant speeches. They forced her into a car and drove off."

"How do you know this?"

"I got it from those two blockheads who are supposed to guard me. Apparently," added Chesham, sarcastically, "those two men don't realise a crime is being committed even when it is going on under their noses."

Detective Evans picked up a telephone. He kept his eyes on Chesham as he spoke to someone:

"Have the trail reports on Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia been received?"

He waited a moment. Then he gave a short laugh.

"All right. If the men are down below I'll see them later." He turned to the Prince as he replaced the telephone. "You must have upset our men by leading them from Piccadilly to here. But go on with your story. Prince Serge. What did you do when you discovered the lady was missing?"

"Drove at once to Piccadilly, to the house where I'm staying," replied Chesham.

"Yes, and then?"

"I was explaining matters to her father when the telephone rang. To my surprise. Helen Mann herself was speaking."

D ETECTIVE EVANS raised his eyebrows.

"Did she tell you where she was speaking from?"

"Yes. The Koravian Embassy in Park Lane."

With an irritated gesture, the detective flung the pencil and paper aside.

"I would suggest, Prince Serge," he snapped, "that before you come here talking of kidnapping―"

"I said the girl was kidnapped," went on Chesham, in an even tone. "At the moment she is a prisoner in the Koravian Embassy. Her release is promised― on terms. Those terms she told me herself on the telephone."

"Do the kidnappers want money?" asked Evans, sarcastically.

Chesham shook his head.

"They want me. They bluntly suggest that I attend a special diplomatic reception at the Embassy to-morrow evening, and I will discover the lady waiting for me."

"That seems ordinary enough to me," said Evans.

"I quite appreciate that," replied Chesham. "But once I enter those doors in Park Lane I am on Koravian soil."

The detective shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, your politics are a little too complicated for me. Prince Serge. I fail to see what harm could come to you at your own Embassy."

"I am an exile," explained Chesham, simply. "Incidentally, I am considered by some Koravians, as also by yourself, a dangerous exile."

"I'm beginning to think you're just a nuisance. Prince Serge," said Evans, rising to his feet and facing Chesham. "You come to me with a cock-and-bull story of a girl being kidnapped and kept a prisoner at the Koravian Embassy, and now you say you're scared to death to enter a house in Park Lane."

Chesham also rose.

"I shall enter that house in Park Lane to-morrow evening, whatever happens," he said. "But I implore you, Evans―" he was flinging aside the haughty pose of Prince Serge― "I implore you to get this girl released from the Koravian Embassy. It― it's a matter of life and death."

The detective stared at him in silence for a few seconds.

"I don't believe your story." he said bluntly, "but I'll telephone the Koravian Embassy now. Sit down, please."

He stretched out a hand for the telephone, consulted a list on his desk, and asked for a number. A few moments passed.

"Is that the Koravian Embassy? Is the Ambassador there? This is Scotland Yard speaking—the Special Branch. Yes, if the Ambassador would be so good ..."

Again a pause. Out of the corner of his eyes Evans noticed that the man seated before him was clenching and unclenching his hands. Obviously Prince Serge was in a highly nervous and racked state.

"Ah, the Ambassador? Good afternoon, your Excellency. I must apologise for troubling you, but have you by any chance heard of a Miss Helen Mann? No? You're quite sure? She couldn't by any strange chance be in the Embassy at present? I thought not. No, your Excellency. The reason I ask is because the young lady has been reported missing and someone claims to have seen her entering the Koravian Embassy. Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. The man who claims to have seen her?"

Evans gave a swift glance at Chesham.

"It was Prince Serge Lobai, your Excellency."

For the next few minutes Evans listened to a disquisition from the Ambassador on the nuisances that exiled princes are likely to make of themselves. At the end of the conversation the detective thanked the Ambassador and replaced the telephone.

"They utterly deny the fantastic story." he reported. "The Ambassador was kind enough to waive a diplomatic privilege and say that if I cared to search the Embassy for the missing girl he would give me every assistance."

"And didn't you accept?" asked Chesham eagerly.

"Of course not," snorted Evans. "The Special Branch is not in the habit of being made to look foolish. I'm afraid. Prince Serge, that you'll have to come to me with a better story than this to enlist the aid of Scotland Yard in your revolutionary activities."

Chesham leaped to his feet.

"You're a fool. Evans!" he cried "But I will admit that I want a revolution. It isn't in Koravia."

"Where then?" innocently asked Evans.

"In Scotland Yard." shouted Chesham, and stormed out of the room.

Evans grinned, and took up the telephone.

"Tell our men to stick to the trail of Prince Serge. He's on his way downstairs, now. Oh, and get me all the information you can about Miss Helen Mann, of 70a Piccadilly. Find out if she's a nice girl. Got that? Yes. and also anything about Mark Mann, her father. Calls himself a financier. Yes, Mark Mann."

Evans slammed back the telephone.

"I'm beginning to think I don't know half enough about the mysterious Mark Mann." he mused to himself.

Half an hour later. Chesham, despair written on his face, was recounting the futility of his visit to Scotland Yard to the chief.

Mark Mann nodded.

"Well, young man, we know where we are. We've got to try a new plan."

"The plan that I'm decided upon," said Chesham, with set jaw, "is to visit the Koravian Embassy to-morrow evening as Prince Serge Lobai."

8

AS Chesham stepped out of the room after his talk with the chief, Julian, the flunkey, bowed before him.

"Pardon me, sir," said Julian quietly, "but your wife has called."

"My—what?"

"Your wife, sir. Insists on seeing you. She's waiting in the drawing-room below."

Chesham hesitated. This was the woman of whom Detective-Inspector Evans of Scotland Yard had spoken. She had discovered his address. He wondered whether to walk back into the room and acquaint Mark Mann with this sudden development. But the chief had already suggested that Chesham should meet the woman and keep her quiet.

"What... er... is she like?" asked Julian.

A queer question for a husband to pose, but Julian's face remained grave.

"Rather good-looking, I should say, sir."

"I'll go downstairs and see her," he said decisively.

"Very good, sir."

Julian led the way, and Chesham followed with the mingled feelings of a man about to see a specialist who would pronounce his physical doom. With a sudden flash of commiseration on his face. Julian opened the door of the drawing-room and ushered Chesham inside. Then he promptly closed it, almost with the alacrity of a gaoler.

"Hullo, ducky!"

Something all frothy and pink called out to Chesham from a couch against the window. In the first startled glimpse he had of her, he realised that she was rather like an overblown pink rose. Her bosom was expansive, her blonde hair frothing. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Two fleshy-pink arms were outstretched towards him. Despite the cheery nonchalance of her tone, her bosom was heaving emotionally.

"I beg your pardon, madam," began Chesham distantly but desperate. "There must be some mistake."

"Oh, come off it, ducky," she went on. "Don't say you've forgotten your Phoebe. P'raps you'll be saying next you don't remember marrying me at the Henrietta St. register office three years ago?"

"I don't," said Chesham stoutly.

"Nor taking a house in Clapham, number 15, Cherry Walk, I suppose? If you think hard you might recall that we lived there until a few weeks ago when you disappeared without a word of farewell."

"I assure you that this is an awful mistake," insisted Chesham.

She smiled, her rosy, cold-cream cheeks displaying dimples.

"What's the game?" she asked. "You know you can trust me. I had an awful job finding you. I thought you'd gone to Koravia."

"Who told you I lived here?" he asked.

"Nobody." she replied cheerfully. "I was on my way to Scotland Yard to ask for some information, when I saw you rush out. I followed you. You came in here, and I gave the flunkey a smile at the door and told him to tell you the good news that Phoebe had called."

"But you must realise that I'm not your husband," said Chesham, desperately.

He was fully aware that he possessed no startling resemblance to the real Prince Serge of Koravia. It was incredible that the woman should claim to recognise him when the real Prince Serge was lying dead, and unidentified, in a police mortuary. Ought he to tell her that? If he did, it might explode the whole farcical adventure. And what would be the position of Helen then, Helen who was still in terrible . danger, and whom he had determined to rescue? While this medley of desperate thoughts crowded his brain the cheery person in pink was smiling at him with a sort of greedy satisfaction.

"I'm not mistaken," she said, calmly confident. "You're my husband all right. I've got my marriage lines"―her hands dived towards her bosom—"and your own name is written down in black and white. I suppose you aren't going to deny that you're Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia?"

She fluttered an official paper before him. He took it from her hand and scanned it hurriedly. It was Issued for a register office, and dated three years previously. It announced that Phoebe Trott, spinster, had that day been married to Serge Karolya Luket Alexandra Lobai, bachelor; occupation, gentleman.

Even as he scanned the document Chesham realised in a flash why the woman persisted in this farce. Blackmail, of course. She probably knew her husband was dead. She had guessed that this impostor prince was playing a game for high stakes. And she was determined to have her share of the spoils.

Sternly he faced her.

"You're playing a very dangerous game, Phoebe," he began.

She was smilingly unabashed.

"I ain't playing any game at all," she replied, lapsing into her native Cockney. "I'm a respectable married woman who's called here to take her husband home. And I think you ought to come home. I've got a fine show of pink geraniums In the front garden of 15 Cherry Walk. You always was partial to pink. That's why I put on my pink organdie to-day. Sort of presentiment I was going to meet you."

Chesham almost threw up his hands in despair. This was, to say the least, disconcerting.

"What d'you want?" he asked bluntly.

"Nothing, really, ducky," she said surprisingly. "Except yourself. I want you to come home. I know you won't be comfortable in a big, draughty house like this. And all that noise going on outside. You see I know you, ducky, and I know what's best for you. At the same time I don't mind admitting I could do with a fiver. The rent's due, and the young man who calls for it is apt to be snappy."

"Oh, so it is blackmail!" cried Chesham.

"Blackmail! Is asking your husband for a fiver to pay the rent, and a few oddments blackmail?" asked Phoebe.

Her plump hand angrily frothed up her hair.

"I know your game," said Chesham stoutly. "I'm not married to you and I don't intend to be."

At the same time he ruthlessly tore the register office document into a dozen pieces.

Phoebe regarded him as she would a wilful child.

"Well, you always would give way to your tantrums, ducky. It's a good thing that the marriage lines you tore up was only a copy. I got the original at 15 Cherry Walk. So if you want to tear them up you'll have to come home." She brushed away the suspicion of a tear on her cold cream cheek. "And don't forget, ducky, I'll always be waiting there for you. I still make those steak-and-kidney pies for supper. You used to like 'em. So long! I'm calling again in a day or two."

And with a final, caressing smile, this amazing creature sailed towards the door.

"Good-bye!" said Chesham definitely.

The door closed as Chesham fumbled in irritated fashion for a cigarette. The aroma of cheap scent clung to the curtains.

RECEPTIONS at the Koravian Embassy in Park Lane were always well attended. Although the Republic was geographically small, and considered of little importance in London, the Embassy had the reputation of giving the best and most lively parties in the West End.

Few of the well-dressed people who thronged the house in Park Lane on these occasions could have told you the exact position of Koravia on the map of Europe. But nearly all of them knew the exact position of the bar in the Embassy and the quality of the champagne and the variety of cocktails had been discussed again and again by drunkards of discrimination.

As Chesham, in an expensive limousine,

drew up at the lighted entrance, he felt the feeble hand of his companion in the car close on his for a moment.

"Good luck to you, young man," Mark Mann whispered. "I've done my best for you. I've got a few men posted, but I rather think everything will depend upon yourself. At all costs we must get Helen out of their clutches."

"At all costs we will," Chesham declared grimly.

"Won't you take this automatic?" pleaded the chief, thrusting a glittering object forward.

Chesham shook his head.

"They're bound to expect it," he replied, "and I want to surprise them with the unexpected."

The chief sighed.

"Have it your own way, then. I'll be waiting with the car for you at the back."

Chesham nodded.

"If I'm not out of this place with Helen before midnight, you can fear the worst," he grunted.

And without a glance over his shoulder he stepped out on the strip of red carpet that led from the edge of the pavement towards the lighted house.

"Oo-er!"

The Cockney exclamation was justified. A little crowd had gathered to watch the arrival of these smartly-dressed men and expensively-gowned women. Chesham would certainly attract attention. Tall, of athletic build, good-looking, he strolled forward with the insouciance of a prince to the life. That distinguishing blood-red order was round his neck and dangling across his white shirt-front. His dress-suit was a triumph of Savile Row. He held his head, with its smooth casque of fair hair, high. His blue eyes, cool and confident, stared before him.

The attendant who had snicked open the door of the limousine bowed low. Just as Chesham was about to mount the steps a beggar thrust his way forward. A blind beggar, with the brass insignia on his coat.

"Spare a copper, sir― just a copper, sir!" The attendant was about to rush forward and thrust the blind man aside. But Chesham laughed, stopped, and dropped a silver coin In the can that was pushed beneath his nose.

"Thank you, sir. Good luck to you, sir." The blind beggar faded into the crowd, but not before Chesham had recognised him. It was White Eyes. The chief was right. He had posted his men.

The encounter brought fresh courage to Chesham. Squaring his shoulders, he climbed the steps and entered the doorway. Immediately he found himself among a chattering, happy throng that seemed to consist chiefly of bright young women and cynical old men. The sort of throng that might be expected at any Embassy reception. It seemed absurd to suppose that Chesham was in the slightest danger.

A flunkey in Koravian livery relieved him of the hat and coat that he carried. Slowly he made his way through the throng. A doorway leading to a brilliantly-lit ballroom materialised before him. From the distance came the soft sound of a waltz being played. Two powerful-looking flunkeys, also in Koravian livery, guarded the door.

Chesham hesitated. The moment had come. He had to pass those flunkeys, and enter the rooms beyond. Somewhere hidden away was Helen. Could he sneak up some staircase and prowl about this strange house of Park Lane while the other guests were dancing?

He glanced about him quickly, but the staircase was away at the other side of the ballroom. He would have to present himself to those two flunkeys before he could really get inside the house.

A couple passed before him. He saw he flunkeys closely scrutinise their cards f invitation. The cards were taken, their names loudly announced, and a dark, bullet-headed man hurried forward to hake them by the hand. It was all very orthodox and proper.

Chesham set his jaw, and strolled forward.

"Your card, sir?" The first flunkey had challenged him.

Chesham produced it. It was signed by he Ambassador, Josef Churt, and announced that the Koravian Embassy had he pleasure of Inviting Prince Serge Lobai o the reception that was to be held at Park Lane that evening.

The flunkey perused it. His eyes narrowed as he read the name. He gave a quick glance at Chesham, and with the suggestion of an ugly grin on his face turned towards the brilliantly-lit room and the crowd before him and announced loudly: "Prince Serge Lobai!"

Immediately the chatter was cut abruptly is though with a knife. A crowd of faces turned in surprise to the doorway. Only the music continued, that soft, seductive ;waltz played discreetly in the distance.

But a laugh broke the silence. Chesham saw the bullet-headed man hurrying forward, hand outstretched,

"Your Highness, this is a pleasant surprise," smiled the Ambassador. "Let us hope that your presence here will dispel the absurd rumours that the royalists of Koravia have designs upon the Republic. I greet you, Prince Serge, in the name of ¡the Republic of Koravia."

All very proper and outwardly generous. For the moment Chesham was taken completely off his guard. He took the out, stretched hand, and only when it closed on his with the vice-like suggestion of a man who had captured his enemy, did Chesham realise that so far this was all stage show. Instinctively, too, did he sense that the two flunkeys had closed in on the doorway through which he had just entered. He would not easily pass through that doorway into the street again.

"Permit me, your Highness, to introduce a few of our distinguished guests," went on the Ambassador, taking Chesham by the arm gently but possessively.

A few faces smiled engagingly towards him. Most of those bright young women had read their Sunday newspapers and had devoured the scandal of this young Prince's love affairs. Now that they saw him before them they were prepared, even anxious, to make a limelight debut into that scandal.

One after another name was sonorously introduced by the Ambassador. Chesham found himself shaking hands with a multitude of people. And all the correct people military attachés, representatives of other embassies, politicians, all the West End world of diplomacy.

"If they're going to murder or kidnap me." thought Chesham as he shook hands with a swarthy individual from the Spanish Embassy, "it's being done publicly and well in the limelight."

"And now," continued the insinuating voice of the Ambassador, "before I introduce you to some of these attractive young ladies, I think Your Highness will appreciate the little surprise I have here for him." He had led Chesham across the highly polished floor of the ballroom as he spoke, through the maze of dancers and towards a corner of the room.

"Is this the moment?" thought Chesham, clenching his fist.

"There is one young lady here who, I need not assure you, has been waiting for Your Highness' arrival with the keenest anticipation."

And with the genial smile of an illusionist producing a woman from a cabinet, the Ambassador waved his hand and Helen Mann strolled through a pair of heavy curtains into the ballroom.

"Helen!" gasped Chesham for the moment unable to believe his eyes. a sob of relief she came swiftly towards him. She wore an evening frock, obviously new. It was a triumph of the dressmaker's art, and revealed her slim, virginal figure to perfection. Incidentally, its snow-white texture emphasised the glory of that autumnal hair.

"Arthur, this is madness," she whispered. The smiling, bullet head of Josef Churt bowed before them.

"I think, your Highness, it would be discreet of me to leave you for the moment. I'm sure I'm not wanted. But may I beg of you to dance? This music surely, and the charming lady, your Highness, will prove irresistible."

The look in her eyes decided Chesham. He realised that it would be easier to talk in the middle of that dance floor than against the curtained walls which were possessed of ears and revolvers.

He took her in his arms. The orchestra was playing a popular piece. Chesham and Helen began to slide easily over the floor.

He realised now that he and Helen were prisoners, in the midst of a fashionable throng at a diplomatic reception. It seemed incredible, but it was starkly true. Chesham danced slowly on the outskirts of the throng, keeping to the walls of the room. He passed a group of people seated on a couch, laughing and chattering. Then came a space of wall decorated with a rare canvas by Boucher. A court scene by a master of court painting. He piloted Helen past a big window heavily draped with velvet curtains. Then another group of indolent observers.

Chesham was examining the walls of his prison. The came to a doorway. Two flunkeys were on guard there. They had their gaze fixed on Chesham. There was a cold brutality in their eyes that made him shiver. No escape that way. Another expanse of wall, decorated with the republican flag of Koravia. Then another door. The inevitable flunkeys on guard.

"Supposing," whispered Chesham in the little white ear that was so temptingly near his lips, "supposing I stood up in the middle of this ballroom and yelled aloud that there was a plot afoot to murder me."

She shook her head, and her carmined lips whispered back:

"They're prepared for that. They would smile, shrug their shoulders and let you go on yelling."

"But at least we'd get clear," he protested.

"No, at any rate, you wouldn't. The Ambassador has already spread rumours that Prince Serge is slightly mad. Your appearance here has already emphasised that rumour. And if yaw created a scene they would declare you a lunatic. It would suit their purpose to get you in an asylum."

Once again Chesham shivered.

"But that would need doctors, certificates, and everything," he argued.

"They would have their own doctors here, who would be ready to certify you insane," she whispered.

They were dancing and moving easily in the midst of the throng now. One or two couples smiled genially at them.

"How did you learn of this devilish plotting?" he asked.

"The Ambassador himself told me," she replied.

"Have they treated you badly?" he asked fiercely. And he clutched her tightly to him as he spoke.

"No, they've been particularly courteous, but firm," she said. "From the moment they captured me in Hyde Park―"

"How did they capture you?"

"I was standing a yard or two away from you. Suddenly I discovered two men, one on each side of me. One of them had his hand in his coat pocket, and was pointing something at your back― a revolver. The other said to me: 'We should hate to kill Prince Serge here, but we shall do so unless you accompany us in the car we have waiting.' "

"Damn them," growled Chesham. "And those two fools from Scotland Yard were watching, too."

"I stepped into the car with them," said Helen. "It seemed the only thing to do. We drove off. In a few minutes we arrived here. I was taken before the Ambassador. He began to ask questions. I told him nothing."

"Thank heaven for that," murmured Chesham.

"But he nevertheless knew nearly everything," said Helen, with a sigh. "He knew of Daddy's syndicate that was financing the royalist party in return for the radium concession. He knew that there had been a meeting of the Pirates. There was only one thing he did not know..."

"And what is?"

"That the real Prince Serge is dead, and that you are taking his place."

THE orchestra dribbled into silence. The fashionable throng stood about the floor in the unreal postures of couples released from the dance.

"Let us go and sit down," said Chesham, taking Helen by the arm, and directing her towards one of the vacant couches. "They won't allow us out of the room, anyhow."

"Have you a plan?" she asked eagerly.

"Not even the vestige of an Idea," he confessed ruefully. "Your liberty is only to be bought by my imprisonment. I walk into your cell. You walk out. Perhaps it would be wisest to go to the Ambassador, admit defeat, and bargain with him."

"I should hate you if you did," she flashed back at him. "And in any case, here is the Ambassador himself coming to us."

"Like the hangman seeking his victim," growled Chesham. "I think I shall make a scene after all."

The bullet-headed Josef Churt was already bowing before them.

"I hope your Highness is enjoying himself?" he grinned.

"I find it rather stuffy in this room," said Chesham, carelessly. "I think I shall take a stroll."

The grin on Josef Churt's face widened. "That, I deeply regret to say, is impossible at the moment, your Highness..."

He got no further. Just at that moment Chesham's fist shot out and caught him square on the jaw. He crumpled to the polished floor of the ballroom for all the world like a shot elephant. But the thud of his falling body caused a hundred heads to swivel in the direction of this amazing scene.

That fashionable throng were treated to something even more sensational.

"This way, Helen!" called out Chesham, and flinging himself at the huge Koravian flag draping the wall he tore it aside ruthlessly. A small staircase was disclosed. Chesham had glimpsed it as the flag fluttered a little when the breeze caught it.

Dragging the slim figure in the white evening dress behind him. Chesham plunged at the staircase.

"Prince Serge!" gasped the season's debutantes in ecstasies at what they imagined must be a new and frightful escapade. "A lunatic. Gone clean crazy. Tearing down the republican flag."

The elderly diplomats boggled with their codfish eyes at the sight.

Four powerful flunkeys hurried across the polished floor and rushed at the staircase in pursuit.

Hardly anyone noticed a laughing young man who joined in the chase.

9

SCUTTERING up the staircase, Helen and Chesham were confronted by a door. Chesham stretched out a hand. The door opened easily. They entered, and found themselves in a long room with a table that stretched nearly the whole length. It was obviously the conference-room of the Koravian Embassy.

"Where now?" gasped Helen.

Chesham gave a quick glance round. Except for a large doorway at the other end of the room there was no exit except by the little staircase up which they had come. And even now they could hear the thudding footsteps of the flunkeys in pursuit.

"Let's try that big door!" decided Chesham.

He raced across the room as he spoke, his feet sinking in the luxurious carpet that clogged his progress as in a swamp, his hands grasped the gilded handle. But the door did not open. It was locked.

Even as he tried it he heard footsteps coming along the corridor outside. There were excited whispers. Their retreat had been cut off.

"Get your backs against the wall!"

The sharp command reached them as they struggled vainly with the locked door. They swung round. A fair-haired young man had entered the room, having raced up the staircase after them. Chesham recognised him at once. It was the laughing young man who had lurched against the waiter at the Bandon Hotel when an attempt had been made on his life.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Chesham.

"Don't ask silly questions, but do as I tell you," ordered the young man.

At the same time he raced across the heavy carpet and stood at the end of the table where he could face the pursuers coming up the staircase. Helen and Chesham stood behind him, instinctively obeying his command. They had no sooner grouped themselves than the first of the pursuers arrived. Four flunkeys almost tumbled into the room. They gave a shout of triumph as they saw Helen and Chesham.

"Stop! Stand where you are!"

The rapped-out command of the fair-haired young man reached them. The flunkeys hesitated. Then they saw something that decided them. The young man had levelled a steely-blue automatic in their direction. They stopped dead, breathing heavily.

There came another patter of footsteps on the stairs. Then there bounded into the room the bullet-headed Josef Churt. Chesham saw, with a sense of great satisfaction, that there was a trickle of blood coming from what a few minutes ago had been a smirking mouth. Behind him was another scoundrelly-looking man in evening dress. He was one of the diplomatic corps.

"Get hold of both of them!" snarled

Josef Churt as he glimpsed Helen and Chesham. "What are you men waiting―"  It was then he saw the laughing young man.

"Exactly," smiled that individual, still keeping his pistol dangerously steady. "It's this deadly little toy that keeps them inactive. Monsieur Churt, Let me warn you that it is liable to go off and create a sad mess on the carpet should you or any of your men advance a step farther."

"Who are you?" growled Josef Churt.

"One of your distinguished guests," was the reply. "Incidentally, I have an absurd desire to see fair play. This girl (he indicated Helen) and particularly the fellow with her seems to need some protection."

"Do you realise who he is?" asked Josef Churt. "That is Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia."

"Is he really?" said the smiling young man, not in the slightest degree nonplussed. "Then why are you chasing him about this Embassy?"

"That is no business of yours," retorted the Ambassador.

"Perhaps not," was the reply. "But as Prince Serge seems anxious to escape from your peculiar hospitality and has so far been prevented, I propose to give him what little assistance I can."

"You're a fool," decided the Ambassador. "Do you realise that by threatening me and my assistants with a pistol you are behaving like a dangerous criminal?"

"I am a dangerous criminal," laughed the young man. "And I can assure you that I will not hesitate to shoot if any of you dare move."

THE Ambassador looked round at his men. Then he measured the distance between him and the young man. It was not reassuring. His flunkeys shuffled at the glance. The scoundrelly-looking man in evening dress also hesitated.

"Very well," said Josef Churt, with a sigh. He dived a hand into his pocket and produced a key. He flung it carelessly along the polished table. "There's the key of the door. Perhaps Prince Serge might care to use it and unlock the door behind him."

"One moment!" warned the young man, as Chesham stretched forth an eager hand. "The Ambassador is bluffing, Prince Serge. There is a group of men already stationed outside that door, in the corridor. Once you step out they will politely but firmly conduct you to the little room that the Ambassador desires so much to place at your disposal. I think, under the circumstances, you will find it safest to leave by the staircase up which you have already come."

"You damned interloper!" snarled the Ambassador, taking a step forward.

The automatic levelled itself in his direction.

"Get out quickly!" commanded the young man to Chesham. "Go through the ball-room. All the men set to watch you are now swarming this floor."

Helen began to move across the room in the direction of the staircase. At a nod from the young man Chesham followed. But as he passed the static group of flunkeys, and the Ambassador, and his companion, there was a sudden eruption. The scoundrelly-looking man in evening dress had darted forward.

But he only progressed a few steps. There was a cough from the automatic pistol, which had been fitted with a silencer, and the man in evening dress slid to the floor.

"Don't wait, you fool!" shouted the fair-haired young man as he saw Chesham hesitate. "Get out, as quickly as you can. I'm all right. In fact," he added grimly to the horrified group that remained, "I'm enjoying myself."

Helen and Chesham had gone. The acrid tang of powder began to scent the room. The flunkeys stared down stupidly at the prone figure on the carpet. It was the Ambassador, Josef Churt, who broke the silence.

"This is murder!" he said, hoarsely.

"You ought to know," nodded the young man, cheerfully. "Murder appears to be a speciality in this Embassy. And now I propose to take my own leave of your charming hospitality. I shall not hesitate to commit another murder if anyone dares to stop me."

And with an ironic bow he began to walk to the staircase, still keeping his pistol levelled. The flunkeys shrank from his approach.

"Thank you," he said, easily, and disappeared through the little doorway.

As soon as he had gone, the Ambassador turned to the flunkeys.

"Quick, you white-livered fools! Open the other door."

One flunkey seized the key, and with trembling hands managed to open the big door. No sooner had he done so than a group of men-secretaries in evening dress, diplomats, and flunkeys poured in. They all stopped in horror at the sight of that prone figure on the floor. Blood was slowly staining the carpet.

"Prince Serge, you idiots!" screamed the Ambassador. "Stop him! He's down below."

Two of the flunkeys hurried away. But in a few minutes they returned. One glance at their faces was sufficient for the Ambassador. Prince Serge had escaped.

"They drove away in a limousine less than a minute ago."

There was silence in that mixed throng in the conference-room as the Ambassador slowly walked to the telephone that rested in the corner of the room.

"Give me Whitehall 1212!" he commanded.

A moment later.

"Is that Scotland Yard? This is the Ambassador of the Koravian Embassy in Park Lane speaking. Yes. I want you to send police officers at once. A murder has been committed. Yes, a murder."

His gaze sought that prone figure on the carpet as he spoke, and a gleam of satisfaction crossed his face. "An Embassy official has been shot here, and the murderer is Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia."

There was a gasp of horror and astonishment as the Ambassador replaced the receiver.

"Prince Serge... a murderer!"

"Yes, gentlemen," said the Ambassador, his stern gaze warning the flunkeys. "Prince Serge, as you saw, went raving mad. When cornered in this room he produced a pistol and shot down my private secretary ruthlessly. He has, for the moment, escaped. We must leave it to Scotland Yard to discover him."

The startled scream of the first woman to find her way upstairs and glimpse the body brought to an end the Ambassador's sinister oration.

It was a breathless moment for Helen and Chesham as they stepped from beneath the Koravian flag into the ballroom again. Guests were standing about, whispering their astonishment at the extraordinary scene they had witnessed.

"The Prince... Here he comes!"

A strained silence greeted Chesham and the girl in the white virginal frock as they strolled easily across the polished floor. Chesham felt the girl trembling.

"Keep cool," he muttered, "We'll get through."

He held himself with easy arrogance. And there was no suspicion of hurry in his stroll across the ballroom. So assured, so ordinary was the effect he created, that one woman ventured a curtsy and a smile as he neared the door.

"Good night, your Highness."

"Good night," replied Chesham graciously.

They reached the doorway. He held himself tense, ready for an attack. If the flunkeys were there he was prepared to batter his way through with his fists.

But there was no one in the doorway. At the first sounding of the alarm, all had rushed to the next floor. At that very moment they were plunging into the room.

"Don't hurry!" warned Chesham as he felt Helen almost ready to rush for the cool breath of Park Lane that seemed to meet them just outside the ballroom They reached the outer door. A uniformed attendant stood there. Chesham clenched his fists. But the attendant's attitude was casual.

"Your car, sir?"

"Yes."

"Name, sir, please?"

"Prince Serge Lobai."

"Prince Serge Lobai."

The name went echoing shrilly along Park Lane. Almost before the echo of it had died away a limousine slid alongside the door. With a sob of relief Helen glimpsed her father sitting within the lighted interior.

"Daddy!" she murmured.

Chesham clutched her arm, warningly. The attendant stepped to the pavement, and snicked open the door of the limousine. Chesham handed Helen into it, and a moment later followed her.

"Home!" he commanded briefly to the chauffeur.

The uniformed attendant saluted. The limousine started forward. Even as they swung into the traffic of Park Lane, Chesham, looking back, saw a flunkey rush into the street and begin interrogating the L attendant.

"Jove, that was a near thing!" he murmured.

"I don't know how you managed it. Chesham," grunted the chief, "but it's magnificent."

He was stroking Helen's hair as he spoke, for she was leaning against him and crying softly.

"No thanks to me." replied Chesham. "We escaped with the help of a fair-haired young man who butted in at the right moment with an automatic pistol in his hand. Held up the Ambassador and his gang while we got away, and when one fellow made a move to stop us, this young man plugged him as calmly as though he was shooting for pink vases on Hampstead Heath."

The chief seemed perturbed.

"This is bad news," he said. "Was the shot man killed?"

"He seemed dead enough to me," nodded Chesham. "I didn't stop to make certain."

"Tch! This makes things very difficult," muttered Mark Mann.

Chesham shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, at least we're out of the hands of the Koravian gang," he said.

"So you imagine."

"But I don't see―"

"Can't you realise," said the chief, a little impatiently, "that you are out of their hands, but quite likely to be in the hands of Scotland Yard within the hour?"

"But I haven't committed a crime," protested Chesham.

"No, but this hot-headed fool of a young man has. Probably murder. And if I know the Koravians they'll place the blame on you. Who the devil is this young man, anyhow?"

"Isn't he one of us?", asked Chesham.

"One of us?"

"The Pirates."

Mark Mann shook his head.

"I couldn't get a single man inside that house to-night," he confessed. "Anyone who helped you must have been a fool or a madman."

"He looked rather nice," ventured Helen. "Fair hair, and a smiling sort of face."

"He sounds about as exciting as a film hero," growled the chief.

"He certainly behaved like one," grinned Chesham.

The limousine drew up at the house in Piccadilly. It was midnight. The theatres had emptied, but the pavements were thronged with the usual drifting crowd of Mayfair at that hour. A policeman was standing casually by the door.

The chief hesitated with his hand on the door of the car. The policeman sauntered slowly along the pavement. Mark Mann heaved a sigh of relief.

"Help me out," he said to Helen and Chesham. "And let's get up to my room at once. We've got to plan swiftly. I sense disaster on the horizon."

With some difficulty Mark Mann was lifted out of the limousine and into the doorway of the house in Piccadilly. A few people passing turned at the sight. Julian, the flunkey, was there to receive them. So also was the dark-haired young man, Geoffrey Winterton. He gave a cry of pleasure at the sight of Helen.

"Thank God, my dear, we've got you out of their hands." he said, and with a possessiveness which Chesham hated to see, he took her in his arms.

"Thank you, Geoffrey," she smiled. "It's really nice to be back again. There was a moment when I wondered if I was going to keep that date with you ever."

"You mean the dance?" asked Winterton eagerly.

She nodded.

"Well, why not to-night?" he asked eagerly. "They're dancing, as usual, at the Bandon."

There was a snort of disgust from Chesham. A mischievous smile crossed her face.

"Why not?" she echoed.

But, from the crippled Mark Mann who was being carried upstairs, there came a cold command.

"There's going to be no dancing for anyone to-night. Come up to my room, all of you. I've got work for everyone― serious, dangerous work."

There was no mistaking the vibrating tones. The chief was beginning his big fight for a colossal fortune.

FROM his invalid chair into which he had sunk with a gasp of relief, the chief began to plan his campaign. He regarded the little group that surrounded him― Julian, Winterton, Helen and Chesham― as a general might survey his staff before launching an attack. The grey eyes were alive and alert. The sallow face was flushed. Crippled though his limbs might be, his brain was working clearly and decisively.

"Anything may happen within the next half-hour," he began, "and so we must act quickly. During that drive from the Koravian Embassy here, I've been thinking hard. I've been trying to think like the enemy. How would I act if I were in their position?"

"What will they do?" asked Chesham.

"They'll get you, by hook or crook, as soon as they can," said the chief, calmly. "They've failed on their own account. Now they've got something that can capture you better than any living man, better than any army of men."

"And what is this superhuman thing?" demanded Chesham.

"A corpse," replied the chief. "A murdered man. With that shot man in the Embassy, they can set Scotland Yard to hunt you and lock you in the nearest cell."

"But Arthur didn't shoot him," protested Helen. "It was the young man who helped us."

"We don't know who this young man is," said the chief, shaking his head, "and I don't suppose the Koravian Ambassador cares, either. He's provided them with a corpse which is good enough for them to set Scotland Yard baying at our heels."

"I shall hate to meet Detective Evans again," admitted Chesham.

The shrill summons of the telephone interrupted him.

"Answer it!" he commanded Winterton.

The dark young man took the receiver in his hand.

"Yes― that's right― The Pirates. Well?" He looked up.

"It's White Eyes," he told Mark Mann. "He's speaking from a call-box."

"What's his news?"

Winterton listened. A suspicion of alarm crossed his face. "All right. I'll report to the chief." he said, and slammed back the receiver. Then he turned to the group.

"The police are coming," he said.

"As I thought," nodded Mark Mann. "Are they after our young friend, here?" He indicated Chesham.

Winterton nodded.

"The Ambassador has accused him of murder at the Embassy this evening. White Eyes heard the police give this address to the driver of the Flying Squad van."

"Damn! That gives you three minutes to get clear," said the chief to Chesham. "Give him some money, quickly, Geoffrey. You'll find it in the safe."

"Where do you want me to go?" asked Chesham, taken aback by the rapidity of these preparations.

"I'm giving you an address," said the chief, scribbling on a piece of paper. "You must get to this place somehow. It's a safe hiding place. Don't try to get out of the country. They'll be watching every port. Remember, you're a man wanted for murder, and Scotland Yard knows its business when it comes to man-hunting."

He touched a bell as he spoke and handed the paper to Chesham who took the money and paper and thrust them into a trousers pocket. In a few seconds, the heavy-jawed Scraggs appeared.

"Scraggs!" commanded the chief. "I want you―"

THERE was the slur of a car outside as he spoke, and the squeal of brakes suddenly applied. A second later, and the door-bell was shrilling through the house in Piccadilly.

"The police, eh?" asked Mark Mann.

Julian, twitching aside a curtain at, the window, looked out on the scene below. He turned, and nodded.

"Shall I let 'em in, chief?" asked Joseph Scraggs, poised like a boxer in the ring at the continuous shrilling of that bell.

Mark Mann shook his head.

"No," he said quietly. "Our young friend, Chesham, will let them in."

"What?" gasped Chesham.

"In Scraggs' coat," went on the chief. "Change coats, quickly. There isn't a moment to be lost. That's right. Now go downstairs, Chesham, open the door, and let the police in. Let them all in. And then walk out yourself, and good luck to you. As soon as you've found the hiding place, telephone me."

While these commands were being flung at him. Chesham had changed coats with Scraggs. He had torn off the glittering order from his shirt-front. And he now had the appearance of the typical gentleman's valet. He grinned as he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror. Then he nodded to the group.

"Au revoir!"

"Good luck, young man," nodded the chief.

"Arthur!"

It was Helen who called to him, "Yes?" he hesitated.

Impulsively she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

"Take care of yourself," she said quietly, "for my sake."

It was with the memory of her grey eyes and the red lips that had touched his own, that Chesham scurried down the stairs towards the door which was now being banged by the police.

He fumbled with the lock for a moment, and then flung open the door. Three plainclothes detectives and two policemen were standing there.

"A devil of a time you take to open this door," snarled one of the detectives.

"Sorry, sir," murmured Chesham. Already they were inside.

"Does Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia stay here?" asked one of the detectives.

Chesham nodded.

"His Highness arrived five minutes ago," he said, "and begged me to see that he wasn't disturbed."

"Oh, he did, did he?" sneered the detective. "Well, he's going to be very much disturbed. Where's he now?"

"Upstairs. First floor," said Chesham.

"Come on!" said the detective to his companions, as he made for the stairs.

As they reached the landing the door clicked. Chesham was on the pavement, among the people still straggling along Piccadilly. The black Flying Squad van was drawn up alongside.

Without even a second glance at it, Chesham walked slowly but deliberately away. He dared not turn his head. Any moment he expected to hear a shout, the patter of feet and the realisation that the trick had failed.

He turned the corner. A taxi-cab was just about to rumble away, having deposited a fare. Chesham raised his hand. The driver promptly swung open the door.

"Yes, sir?"

"Er― Whitechapel," said Chesham, with sudden inspiration.

It surely was the last place the police would consider as the hiding place of a royal prince of Europe.

A moment later, and the taxi was swiftly moving eastwards.

He had escaped. But for how long? Now he was a hunted man, wanted for murder.

He thrust his hand Into his pocket, and pulled out the pile of notes and the slip of paper he had been given. He counted the money. There was nearly sixty pounds In notes. Then he glanced at the slip of paper. It read:

Go to Sea View Cottage, an abandoned coastguard's place on the beach at Dungeness. You will find a telephone hidden in the cupboard in the living-room. Ring me up as soon as you arrive.

Mark Mann.

"Dungeness!" murmured Chesham to himself. He remembered that forlorn stretch of sands with the dismal Romney Marsh behind it. It was a part of England almost abandoned to the seagulls and their sinister screaming and squawking.

Chesham shivered at the prospect.

10

MR. SOLLY LEVINSTEIN was the most surprised man in Whitechapel. He had sold a car. Not that there was anything very surprising in that. Solly Levinstein had sold many a car in the course of business. His shop, looking out on the main road of Whitechapel, contained every variety of second-hand gadgets for motor cars, the majority being of that type that can easily be stolen while the owner is not looking.

And occasionally Solly Levinstein stocked a car. It was the selling of one of these cars that made him the most surprised man in Whitechapel. For he had sold it at midnight, just when he was yawning his way round his shop and wondering whether the expense of the electric light justified his keeping open any longer.

The man who had bought it was in evening dress. "A real gent.- believe me or not," he subsequently told an inquiring detective, proudly. And the man in evening dress had paid for it in notes to the value of £20.

"That car was a real bargain—believe me or not," Solly Levinstein had added. For the benefit of the brutal scepticism of the detective, he even produced the desperately worded sale ticket that had helped sell the car: "Drive this away now for £20."

"And he drove it away like a gent what was used to cars from his nursery days― believe me or not," Solly Levinstein had said, pathetically anxious to point out that the transaction had been perfectly genuine.

That useful information Scotland Yard had only been able to glean and add to their rapidly-growing dossier of the missing Prince Serge Lobai and the murder at the Koravian Embassy when the miserable £20 motor car was already in their possession, some days later.

The moment that Arthur Chesham descended from the taxi in Whitechapel, saw the £20 car for sale, and took the surprised Solly Levinstein at his word and drove the object away, he discovered that being a prince, exciting though it had been, could not compare with being a hunted man, wanted for murder.

He shivered a little behind his white shirt-front. It was a cold business, driving to the sea in evening dress with only a flapping wind-screen as protection. He realised In those dark, dank hours as he sped along the south-east road that led from London to Maidstone, and then into the dark heart of Kent, that there was only one motive urging him on these crazy adventurings, and that was Helen. Helen of the grey eyes, the autumnal-tinted hair and the slightly parted lips that had pressed against his. Forgotten was Mark Mann, her father, the Koravian royalists, the three blind beggars—all that strange assembly calling itself the Pirates of Piccadilly. He recalled only Helen's last whispered words:

"Take care of yourself, for my sake."

Those words sang in the night wind as he drove the car determinedly along the high-hedged roads above which the straddling hop-poles in the fields gave the whole landscape a webbed appearance. He heard those words as he struggled in the darkness with the rackety engine which sounded like a chamber of horrors come to life.

Again and again the symphony of noise ceased, the car stopped with a jerk, and he stood on the road softly cursing Solly Levinstein and prepared to cajole the over-heated and overwrought engine into life again. There was a bad leaking of the petrol feed, one cylinder was "missing," the plugs had not been cleaned for ages, and, grappling with these difficulties, Chesham realised why Solly Levinstein had closed his shop with a gulp of satisfaction immediately the sale had been concluded.

Nevertheless, he progressed away from London. Mile followed mile, slowly and with racketing impending disaster. There came a moment in the darkness when Chesham felt the breath of the Channel sweeping towards him. A strange-smelling mixture of seaweed, mud, and stagnant water. He must be near Romney Marsh. And it was at that same moment his motor car died.

The engine crashed devastatingly into silence. Bereft even of curses, Chesham stepped out for the tenth time. His stiff shirt front was streaked with oil. His fingers were grimy. The smell of petrol and burnt rubber clung to him. He eyed the car malevolently. But one swift glance at the engine told him all. Its metal soul would never quicken with life again.

With a yawn he fumbled for his last cigarette and lit lt. He slipped back into the driving-seat and wondered vaguely on what part of the globe's surface he had come to rest. He realised that he was very tired and sleepy. Everything around him was pitch dark. Away in the distance a dog barked. It sounded a million miles off.

His body sagged in the seat. The cigarette hung limply from his mouth. He slept.

THE policeman of the little village on the borders of Romney Marsh scratched his newly-shaven chin thoughtfully and brought professional observation to bear upon the scene before him.

In the driving seat of a wretched, broken-down car a man in evening dress was asleep. The sleeper breathed easily and deeply. He was blissfully unconscious of the fact that his car had stopped in the very middle of the road just outside the village.

The policeman coughed; this discreet beginning had no effect upon the sleeper. The policeman made louder and more raucous noises and stretched out a hand for the sleeper's shoulder.

"Hello! What's matter?" grunted the sleeper, blinking and yawning in the ruddy face of the constable.

"Good morning, sir," began the constable, cautiously.

"Er—good morning, constable. Yes, good morning. Where am I?"

Chesham was still grappling with a nightmare engine of his dreams.

"You're parked in the middle of the road, sir."

The only sense that the remark conveyed to the awakening Chesham was that he was very hungry and that breakfast of any kind would be most acceptable.

"Can I get anything to eat in the village?" he asked.

"You might, sir, but―"

It was in a flash that Chesham suddenly realised he was a hunted man, wanted for murder. And here he was, talking blithely with a policeman not a hundred miles away from London.

In that telepathic moment the policeman seemed to realise that there was something strange about this man in evening dress that he had discovered. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Better move your car to the side of the road, sir," he growled.

"You'll have to help me push it." grinned Chesham. "The engine's busted."

"Where might you be making for, sir?"

"Oh― er― the coast."

"I see."

The policeman was becoming more official every moment. Realising that his gaze was fixed on his clothes, Chesham attempted it laugh it away.

"I suppose you're wondering about my clothes― evening dress, and so on. Well I left a dance last night in town and suddenly thought I would motor to the sea."

"Alone?" '

"Er― naturally."

"And without even an overcoat? It must have been a cold drive, sir."

"Well, yes it was."

There was a short silence, a silence that Chesham realised covered a multitude of suspicions. He stretched himself, warily He sensed this village constable would be a problem.

"I think I'll see your licence, sir."

"My licence?"

"Yes, driving licence."

Chesham laughed again, but the laugh sounded unreal.

"I'm afraid I've left it in town, in my overcoat."

"I see."

Obviously the constable did not see. There was an implied suspicion in his tone, now.

"Well?"

Chesham was rising cautiously from his seat.

"I think perhaps you'd better walk along to the station with me and let me have a few particulars."

The constable's tone was ominous. He had drawn himself up to his full official height.

"But this is absurd." protested Chesham.

"Maybe, sir. But it's, my duty to make full inquiries."

"Oh, very well."

Chesham was dangerously casual. He stepped out of the car. At the same time he yawned openly. The policeman watched him.

"I think we'd better push this contraption into the ditch, anyhow," added Chesham, indicating the car with a jerk of his head.

For a second the constable turned his gaze towards the car. It was sufficient for Chesham. His clenched fist swung towards the jaw of the policeman. It caught him squarely.

There was a grunt and the policeman floundered over the car and crashed to the ground. His helmet rolled off and circled in the road. One glance told Chesham that the fellow would be inept for the next two minutes.

The man in evening dress set off running quickly along the country lane. He was like a fly caught on the sticky surface of a fly-paper. That was Chesham's rueful conclusion after three hours' clogging attempts at escape from the stretch of country known as Romney Marsh.

Panic had started him on the first rush into the Marsh. He realised now that the policeman might easily have been bluffed. Five minutes' talk in the police station, the giving of a fictitious name, and the incident might have passed. But village constables are not the fools that some people blindly believe. Chesham recalled the chief's significant remark before he left the house in Piccadilly to hide himself. "Remember, you're a man wanted for murder," he had said, "and Scotland Yard knows its business when it comes to man-hunting."

So, after running for some three miles, floundering through fields bordered by huge ditches filled with marsh water, disturbing sheep which gazed in chewing wonderment at this figure of a man in evening dress slithering over the soggy ground, h had flung himself exhausted against the crumbling shell of a dead tree.

"I'd give five pounds for a breakfast!" he muttered hungrily to himself when h had recovered his breath.

Except for the hasty meal that he had eaten before beginning the adventure a the Koravian Embassy in London, he had not eaten since eight o'clock the previous evening. And it was now ten o'clock In the morning, with the sun climbing a clear sky; revealing a landscape flat and green out o: which even the dwarfed trees seemed to grow dripping with slime.

A few red-tiled roofs about half a mile away told of a village. He gazed at it, the desire for breakfast still gnawing at his empty stomach. He had heard of these lonely villages of Romney Marsh. Queer out-of-the-way places, where queer, out-of-the-way people dwelt. "Marsh folk be mad folk," he once heard a man say in Folkestone. Well, queer or mad, they would at least give him food in exchange for money.

Then he regarded himself ruefully. His trousers, already caking with mud. The stiff shirt-front, smeared with oil and now split open. The coat, once the carefully brushed pride of Scraggs. the valet, now torn and dirty. He would be a strange figure to enter a little village lost on Romney Marsh.

But hunger prevailed. Cautiously he left his hiding place by the tree and began to trudge alongside one of the ditches. He had seen only sheep from the moment he had knocked down the constable and fled into the Marsh. But even those sheep seemed to regard him suspiciously. They scurried away from him as an obvious intruder.

He reached a lane. It led to the village. Yet even as he glanced along the lane he hesitated. Through the branches of the trees he had glimpsed the silver gleam of a wire. A telephone wire? He did not know. Along that wire they might already have warned the village which he was approaching.

But the risk had to be taken. He trudged along for a few hundred yards. Then he caught sight of a figure coming towards him. A man. Chesham clenched his fists, realising that it was too late to hide. The man, obviously a farm labourer, was approaching steadily.

A sallow, scrubby face beneath a battered felt hat turned towards him. A pair of dark eyes regarded him suspiciously.

"Good marnin'," nodded the sallow face.

"Good morning," replied Chesham, gruffly.

He was ready for any attack. The farm labourer stopped and the suspicion on his face deepened as he took in this extraordinary sight of a dishevelled man in evening dress wandering about a lane in the Marsh.

"Be you lost, sir?" ventured the labourer. Chesham noted that the rough, sun-tanned hand that gripped a stick had tightened.

"Yes, I am lost," said Chesham steadily. "My motor car has broken down and pitched me into a ditch."

"Aah!"

Those dark eyes never lost their gleam of suspicion.

"D'you think I can get something to eat In the village?" asked Chesham.

The farm labourer seemed to consider the point.

"There be Missus Gurney," he replied slowly.

"Mrs. Gurney?"

"Aye, she keep the village shop," said the farm labourer.

"Thank you," nodded Chesham, turning on his heel. "Good morning."

"Good marnin'."

Chesham trudged away. But every sense was alert. He knew instinctively that the labourer had not moved a step. The fellow was standing and eyeing him doubtfully. Chesham dared not turn and face that figure. He also dared not hurry. Yet time was precious, and the sooner he bought some food and got away into the safety of the Marsh again, the better. His appearance in that lonely village would afterwards be as widely heralded as if a man from Mars had tumbled into the centre of Piccadilly Circus.

Heaving a sigh of relief, he turned a bend in the road. Then he suddenly stopped. He had heard the sound of scurrying feet along the lane. Someone was running. But they were running in the direction away from him. He realised what it meant. The farm labourer with whom he had spoken was now running along the lane with some exciting motive to speed him.

But at that same moment Chesham realised that he was almost in the village. Rounding the bend in the lane, he found the houses—long, low, squat houses, apparently sinking into dank gardens. The lane was rutted with cart tracks and slimy with marsh water. And when he had passed the blank wall of a barn he suddenly came upon the village store.

There was no mistaking it. "Mrs. Gurney, General Dealer," was painted in black on a white board just above the door. And the door was like the entrance to a cave. Wide open and a black interior. But even as he stood at the entrance Chesham received the full blast of that exciting medley of odours― smoked hams, tea. vinegar and cheese― which was ravishing to his empty stomach.

Yet he could not rid homself of the feeling of a trapped animal as he stepped inside. A warning bell shrilled in the black interior as he stepped on a loose board. He almost turned and fled, but a feminine voice called out:

"Who be there?"

Even before he could answer, the woman appeared. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Gurney. Her ample girth, almost smothered in a buttoned woollen jersey, was tied in a tight bundle by the strings of a dubious white apron. She materialised out of the darkness, revealing a similar sallow face of a marsh dweller.

"Can you sell me a loaf of bread?" asked Chesham, incongruously.

Mrs. Gurneys gaze descended from his face to his clothes.,

"You be in a fearful mess, mister." she said, ignoring his question.

Chesham nodded, impatiently. '

"Yes, my car has broken down. I fell into a ditch. At the moment I want to buy some food. Have you a loaf of bread?"

Already his eyes were contemplating a hunk of cheese behind the counter. And there was a mathematically-stacked collection of tinned foods. He could take a supply with him into the Marsh, wait until nightfall, and make his way to the bungalow on the beach at Dungeness.

"A loaf of bread!"

The woman was irritatingly repetitive. "Yes, quickly, please."

"Aah!"

Mrs. Gurney had waddled back into the darkness. Chesham waited. His mind at that moment was concerned only with food. He was contemplating a smoked ham when, somewhere in the distant darkness, he heard a whisper encroaching upon his consciousness.

".... it be 'im all right... white shirt and black clothes... asking for bread... aye..."

He realised at once what was happening. Mrs. Gurney was whispering into a telephone. So they had been waiting for him! The village knew. The hunt was on, and this little shop was a baited trap.

He did not wait to hear any more. He stepped quickly towards the doorway. Once again his foot caught that loose board and the cursed bell shrilled its alarm in the distant darkness.

"...'e be runnin' away right now."

He darted into the lane. For a moment he hesitated. Should he go back on his tracks? But a shout down the lane decided him. Round the bend came four men carrying pitchforks. They were headed by the labourer whom Chesham had met not five minutes ago.

"There 'e be!" shouted the leader.

"Yoicks!" yelped the others.

They came on with brutal determination. Chesham realised that there was no mercy for him. He could even glimpse the stupid grin of triumph on their faces. Once again he flung caution to the winds and set off at a run down the lane in the opposite direction.

A dog barked madly and rushed out of a neighbouring cottage. Its fangs were bared. Chesham launched a kick towards it. The dog yelped in anticipation of the blow, but dodged it. By the time it had turned, Chesham had burst through a hedge and was heading across a field. A flock of sheep scurried away madly at his approach.

"This way! 'E be gone this way!"

He had by no means shaken off his pursuers. They followed him, padding across the fields in their clumsy, heavy fashion. Chesham had gained nearly a hundred yards. Then he saw something that caused a sob of despair to break from him.

A wide and dirty marsh stream lapped the edge of the field. It meant a leap of over fifteen feet. Tired and hungry as he was, he realised he could not do it. Even as the vision flashed before him he heard a yelp of triumph behind.

"Yoicks! We've got 'im!"

With a savage curse on his lips, he jumped. He saw the muddy water leaping for his feet. Beyond were reeds and soggy marsh land. Down he came in the water, stumbled, recovered himself, and with squelching feet reached the other side.

There was no time to stop. Mud and marsh were clogging his footsteps. Each time he brought a foot down it sank in the oozy mass. He was struggling like a fly on a glue surface. Yet he refused to give In.

He must have panted and fought his way for another three miles until, reaching a clump of trees, he pitched headlong and lay gasping for breath. For the moment he was done, physically and mentally. He lay there, awaiting the thudding footsteps of his pursuers, prepared for rough hands to seize him.

And nothing happened. He lay stretched there in the shelter of the clump of trees, lying in a heap of bracken with thick gorse bush hiding him. The scent had been lost Somewhere, those men with pitchforks wandered helplessly along the wrong trail.

In blessed relief at this escape. Chesham lay for over two hours. Hunger and weakness had now become acute. He was suffering all the agonies of a hunted thing. But something within him refuesd to give in. He would go on. He would reach that cottage on the beach at Dungeness, even if the pursuers were at his heels.

In the silence of that little sanctuary he had found, a new sound forced itself into his consciousness. A droning sound. He looked up. The trees almost hid the sky. He tried to move. A groan escaped him. He realised that his body was bruised and that the stiffness of unaccustomed exercise was gripping him. He made another effort. Cautiously, he crawled through the bracken and emerged at the edge of the coppice. The droning sound had increased. He looked up at the clear sky. A monoplane was droning overhead. It was flying low and circling, obviously in search of something. Or someone! It came in a sudden despairing realisation to Chesham that the monoplane was searching for him. He withdrew, rat-like, to the coppice as the monoplane came swooping towards his hiding place.

He could see two figures in the cockpits. The pilot and his observer. With a tremendous roar, the monoplane zoomed upwards. They had not seen him. And the droning sound began to recede.

The pursuers were closing in on him. Chesham squared his jaw. Even so, he was not yet finished. There was determination now in his movements. He knew well enough that it was not Scotland Yard that had loosed the monoplane and its watchers in his pursuit. Josef Churt and the Koravians were anxious for his capture.

There were Koravian eyes behind goggles searching for him from the sky.

11

THOSE next few hours were torture for Chesham. Weak and exhausted, he stumbled from place to place, but always within the confines of that cursed marsh.

He had seen two cars pass, in each of which sat two policemen. They were patrolling the roads, men and machines ready to rush at him once he was glimpsed. In the back of one of these cars he had seen the red-faced policeman whom he had knocked down with a blow on the Jaw. The man had recovered and Joined In the hunt with a personal determination.

Clouds had gathered in the course of the day, and now rain fell steadily. The marshy fields over which Chesham stumbled became a quagmire. The whole horizon seemed wire-screened with rain. A mist came creeping up from the sea. It was as though the sea was once again taking to itself this hardly-won marsh.

Soaked and shivering as he was by the rain, Chesham realised that it gave him a brief advantage. The monoplane had disappeared. Rain and cloud had driven it back to earth. But the searchers on foot and in motor cars continued.

Hunger was driving the fugitive desperate. Once he sprawled in crossing a field and discovered that it was a half-eaten turnip over which he had stumbled. He picked up the turnip and made his way to the doubtful shelter of a hedge. There he devoured the raw root.

So it went on, this ceaseless moving to and fro by a mud-plastered, rain-soaked man in evening dress. Chesham had lost all sense of direction. The marsh had engulfed him like some fantastic whirlpool of mud, and he went round and round in dizzying circles.

He thanked heaven for the darkness that came early. But in that darkness he was more helplessly lost than ever. It must have been towards six o'clock in the evening that he blundered upon a small cottage, apparently isolated, in that rain soaked landscape.

He had swarmed over a wall and, like a fugitive maniac, stared through a window at a lighted interior. A woman and a man were seated in chairs. They were gazing into a cheery fire and apparently dozing. An oil lamp upon a table shed a comfortable glow over the scene.

Softly, lest there be a dog, Chesham crawled to the back of the cottage. There was a door, which led to the kitchen. He tried it. It gave easily to his touch. In a moment he was inside.

He seized a half-cut loaf of bread that was on the kitchen table and tore a piece apart with his fingers. No one had heard him. Beyond, in the other room, the woman and the man dozed unsuspectingly before the fire. Ravenously, he crushed the bread into his mouth.

Then, suddenly, he stopped. Terror clutched his heart in a cold grip. A voice was speaking in the next room. A cold, unemotional, unreal voice.

"Before I read the news there is one announcement," declared the voice. "I am asked by the Commissioner of Police to broadcast the following:

"Wanted for the shooting of a man at the Koravian Embassy last night, an individual believed to be hiding in the neighbourhood of Romney Marsh. His description is that of a young man about 27, height above the average, blue eyes, fair hair and..."

There was a crash, as Chesham, in his hurry to get clear of that monotonous voices knocked a plate to the floor. He heard a startled exclamation from the other room, and the door was suddenly flung open. A burly country labourer surveyed the scene.

"What the heck..."he began.

But Chesham was already out of the kitchen and clambering over the wall of the garden. He heard the rush of the labourer in pursuit. Like a hunted hare Chesham sprinted once again into the rain.

"Head him off, Joe!" he heard the woman scream.

With a despairing sob, Chesham flung himself across a ditch. He felt he could run no farther. He discovered a clump of willows, swung himself into the thick branches, and clung there with nausea shaking him. And all the time in the rain sodden darkness the labourer and his wife were rushing round like hounds faulty on the scent.

"It's the feller the police be looking for," said the labourer. "Reckin you'd better get to the village, Madge, and tell 'em he's somewhere near. I'll keep an eye open for him while you be gone."

He heard the woman scurry away. Well, that meant the cordon would tighten. He would have a slender chance of escape now. The ring of men surrounding the area would slowly and cautiously narrow.

Somewhere before midnight he would be caught, and there would be a whoop of delight from the pack that was hunting him.

Once more Chesham set his jaw. Slowly he slithered from out the willow tree. The slightest noise, he knew, would bring the farm labourer to the spot, and Chesham dared not risk that, as the little strength left him would not survive such an encounter. He reached the ground. Once again the Marsh sucked at his feet with a malevolent chuckle.

Chesham crawled slowly away in the darkness.

Electric torches flickered like fireflies in the darkness, yellow lamps glowed, disappeared, and shone again in a different place like so many will-o'-the-wisps. And the steady, squelching tread of feet told of the incessant search over Romney Marsh for the man wanted for murder.

From a point in the darkness, his face white and tense, Chesham watched the narrowing circle. He had scrambled hither and thither, avoiding the searchers only by few yards. But he knew that he was near the end of his tether. That slow, encircling movement would capture him in ;he end.

Once again he ran blindly for a hundred yards. Then he stopped. He had almost stumbled over a strange white shape glowing in the darkness. It was a few moments before his dazed brain was able ¡o assimilate this fantastic shape. He then realised that it was a white bell tent with a light inside.

Even as he realised it, there was the murmur of voices within. Chesham swayed dizzily. Were those inside the tent among his pursuers? He did not know. Neither, at the moment, did he care. He boldly staggered towards the entrance to this bell tent.

What he saw caused him to cackle insanely. Obviously, his mind was wandering. There was a dwarfish woman, not three feet high, clad in a red plush riding-habit. Her pinched little face stared up at him.

Beside her was a giant, but a giant with a hump on his back. A powerful hunch-back, swathed in a tight-fitting suit, glared up with a suspicious, hairy face. Between the dwarf woman and the giant hunchback was a swarthy gipsy with a bright yellow kerchief round his neck. A white corduroy suit gave him an eerie appearance beneath the lamp dangling from the pole in the middle of the tent.

"Who the hell are you?" spat out the woman dwarf.

Chesham tried to stop the hysterical laughter that had seized him. The gipsy had leaped to his feet and seized him by the shoulder and was shaking the rain sodden figure.

"D'you hear? Pull yourself together. What's the trouble?"

There was a bottle of whisky on a little table in the tent. The dwarf woman in red plush took it and poured some of the liquid into a glass. Then she carried it to Chesham and offered it to him.

"Here, drink this, you fool," she said. "You need it."

Greedily, Chesham took it and gulped it down. The effect was miraculous. He swayed a little, caught the tent pole, and stood there regaining his breath. The flush of life crept back to his cheeks.

"The police." he croaked, Jerking his head in the direction of the darkness,, "they're after me!"

They all three nodded. It was no unusual affair with them. But the gipsy took the glass from Chesham's nerveless hand and growled, quietly:

"Sorry to hear it, brother. The police are no friends of ours. But we've got to keep on the right side of 'em. You'd better get."

"Can't you hide me?" begged Chesham. The gipsy shook his head.

"No, brother. This is a travelling freak show and we want no trouble with the police."

"No, that we don't," murmured the giant hunchback, speaking for the first time.

A travelling freak-show. That accounted for the queer couple that Chesham had sighted when he first stumbled across the tent in the darkness. But this was no time to analyse his experiences. He would have to go out into the darkness again and brave that encircling group of men.

As though in answer to his desperation, a dog bayed in the night. He shivered at the sound. He saw a wizened, worldly-wise face of the woman dwarf turned towards him with something that might be compassion gleaming from her slits of eyes. But she was the only one. The giant hunchback had turned away and was helping himself liberally from the whisky bottle. The gipsy had thrust his hands into the pockets of his white corduroys and was staring moodily at him.

It was then that Chesham remembered the money he still had, the notes he had thrust into his pocket before he left the house in Piccadilly. A packet of them had gone to pay for that wretched motor car. But a goodly number still remained. He dived a hand into his sodden clothes and brought out the packet. With a gambler's gesture he tossed them on to the table beneath the light.

"They're yours," he said to the gipsy, quietly, "if you'll hide me."

He heard the gasp of astonishment and saw the gleam of greed come over the gipsy's face at the sight of those damp notes, the fivers and pounds stuck together. He saw also the hairy paw of the hunch-back reach out for them, and the snarl of pain as. with a sudden movement, the gipsy brought a hobnailed boot down on the hand.

"How much is there, brother?" asked the gipsy.

"About forty pounds," replied Chesham, swaying with weariness.

"Forty pounds!" shrilled the dwarf woman incredulously.

Once again the dog bayed in the darkness beyond.

"Be quiet!" ejaculated the gipsy. He swung round upon Chesham. "All right, brother, we'll do our best. Jan!"

He muttered something in Romany to the giant hunchback now dangling a paw and whimpering softly in a corner of the tent. But the command was sufficient. With hatred twisting his face he shuffled out of the tent and disappeared into the rain.

"I will hide you in the cage," said the gipsy.

"The cage?"

In his exhausted state Chesham wondered if he had heard rightly.

"He means he will make you the man-ape," shrilled the woman dwarf and cackled with mirth.

"Yes, brother," nodded the gipsy. "I have a travelling cage at the back of this tent. I go from fair to fair showing the man-ape. But the man-ape is Jan, the hunchback. He gets inside the skin of the ape and is shown to those fools who pay a penny to see him. And here is the skin."

The hunchback had lumbered back into the tent carrying a hairy mass with him. This he flung on the ground. A ferocious mask of a gorilla's face dangled from the top of this hair sack like a hood to cover the head.

"Quick, brother," commanded the gipsy. "There is no time to be lost. Get into the skin."

Chesham regarded the hairy mass with disgust. It even possessed a beast-like smell. But this was not the occasion for delicacy. The idea was good and had a chance of success with it. He stretched out his hands, took hold of the hairy sack, and began to pull it over the sodden remnants of his evening dress.

The gipsy and the hunchback helped him. The little lady in her red plush riding habit looked on and grinned. There came the moment when Chesham had to draw the hairy hood and the mask of the gorilla over his face.

"I must put you in the cage at once," whispered the gipsy. "The police may be here at any moment."

As he spoke he stretched out his hand and pocketed the batch of notes. There was an evil grin on his face. For the moment Chesham wished that he had left this strange trio and gone forth to face' the men and dogs who were hunting him. But it was too late to retreat.

"For God's sake give me something to eat," he begged.

"You will find bananas lying on the floor of the cage," growled the hunchback.

The hood was drawn over his head. It was suffocating in its tightness. Moreover, it possessed the sickening stench of something unhuman. A wave of nausea again seized Chesham, but he found himself being dragged out of the tent into the darkness.

He was led like a blind man.

"Bend down, fool," growled the hunch-back.

Mechanically he did so, and was thrust forward into a box-like affair fretted at one side with bars. His padded hands groped about and touched the sawdusted floor. Then he felt a strong hand grip his leg, there was the rattle of a chain, then a click as the steel band closed on his ankle.

"What the devil is this?" he demanded.

"A chain, brother." came the reply of the gipsy from the darkness. "The man-ape must always be chained. The police will want to see you. The chain will blind their suspicions. And now lie there and wait..."

There were chuckles and whispers in the Romany tongue as they stumbled back towards the tent. Chesham was too exhausted to care whether they betrayed him or not. He groped about with his hands and found the bananas that were lying in the cage. He discovered that he could peel them and began to eat ravenously.

The cage was only open at the side.

There was a roof to protect him from the rain. There was also straw littering the: floor. He scooped some together with his padded hands, his chain clanking eerily in the darkness, and then stretched himself.

In a few seconds he had slid into a deep sleep.

But his rest was soon disturbed. In less than half an hour a group of men with lanterns and three yelping dogs were gathered about the gipsy tent. The gipsy and the woman dwarf were hauled forth unceremoniously. A policeman began to interrogate them.

"I have seen no man," yawned the gipsy. "He came this way," said the policeman.

"Maybe―but I have not seen him," repeated the gipsy stubbornly.

"And what about you?" demanded the policeman, towering over the midget woman.

She gaped inanely in his face.

"D'you hear?" shouted the policeman.

"She does not understand English," murmured the gipsy.

The dogs accompanying the men suddenly showed signs of excitement. They yelped and struggled with the leashes that were holding them.

"What be wrong with the dogs?" asked one of the labourers.

They were straining in the direction of something at the back of the tent. The gipsy regarded them, his eyes narrowing.

"They smell the ape," he muttered carelessly.

"What ape?" asked the policeman.

"The man-ape," said the gipsy. "He is part of my show."

One of the farm labourers came forward and held a lamp against the face of the gipsy.

"That be right," he announced to the policeman. "I saw this feller and his monkey down in the village the other day. A rare monkey it be, too."

"We'll have a look at it," decided the policeman.

Led by the gipsy, and followed by the dwarf woman, the group trailed to the back of the tent. There, lanterns were held on high, and the whimpering dogs commanded to be quiet, while all gazed at the sleeping monstrous hairy figure within the cage.

It stirred uneasily as the light splashed down upon the sawdust floor and a litter of banana skins. A queer, inhuman moan seemed to come from it, and it moved a hairy leg. There came the clank of a chain, and the group of men saw that a steel band gripped the leg of the monster.

"Glad to see you keep that beast chained up," said the policeman. "There'd be trouble if it escaped."

"I want no trouble," said the gipsy. Reluctantly, they turned away.

"Where to now?" asked one of the labourers.

The policeman scratched his head.

"Reckon we've just got to go on," he said. "Good night, Egyptian!"

"Good night," answered the gipsy.

And he walked back to the tent where the dwarf woman was waiting for him, a mirthless grin on her face.

Of the giant hunchback there was no sign.

"WALK up... Walk up!..." yelled the voice of the gipsy. "See the greatest monster of modern times. The man-ape. The real; authentic missing link. Brought from the jungles of Java. I assure you, ladles and gentlemen, that scientists have been baffled by this creature. Take a look at it for the price of one penny... one penny..."

Crouched in his cage, Chesham heard the monotonous repetition. It was nearly two days since the steel band had clutched his ankle and he had dropped exhausted .into the gipsy's cage. The fugitive Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia, the man wanted for murder in the Embassy, was now the man-ape being stared at by country yokels in the villages of Romney Marsh.

"Walk up... Walk up!" yelled the voice of the gipsy.

When he had awakened from his long swoon of exhaustion, Chesham had gazed at his hairy skin, the steel bars, and the sawdust-strewn floor of his cage, and wondered in what strange world he had discovered himself. In a few minutes had appeared the grinning dwarf woman. She told him of the baffled searchers of the night before and the hunt that was still going on over Romney Marsh.

"The greatest monster of modern times. Only one penny," shouted the gipsy.

The gipsy had appeared on the other side of the bars in response to Chesham's demand. The swarthy Romany had pointed out that the police were still searching for a man said to have committed murder. They were confident that he could not escape from Romney Marsh. All the roads to London and the ports were watched. It would be necessary for Chesham to remain the man-ape and keep to his cage for a day or so.

Chesham had suggested that they make their way towards Dungeness. The gipsy had agreed. There were several villages on the way where a few coppers could be collected by displaying the man-ape. For the moment. Chesham took his meals in the cage, still held by the chain and garbed in the heavy sack. Even when night descended upon the camp again the gipsy pointed out the danger of Chesham being released.

But after two days of fantastic performances and the slow progress through the villages of Romney Marsh, Chesham began to feel uneasy. True, it was necessary to act with caution. But that this caution should necessitate his being a caged prisoner at night as well as during the day was decidedly unpleasant.

"Where is that hunchback?" he had whispered to the little woman when she brought him his food.

"You mean Jan?" He nodded.

"He was paid off the night you came. He walked out of the tent with his money and we have never seen him since."

"Got tired of being the man-ape, eh?"

"Maybe."

Chesham had laughed at the time, but now that he looked back upon that brief conversation it took a sinister turn. The gipsy would soon have need of a new man-ape. The hunchback had gone. Supposing that the gipsy decided not to seek another man to garb himself in the ape's skin. What then?

"Take a look at it for the price of one penny," repeated the gipsy.

From his squatting position behind the bars, Chesham regarded the gazing faces of the yokels before him. He had a desire to open his mouth and curse them in fluent English. He wondered what the effect upon them would be. Something like a laugh escaped him which the onlookers took for a growl. They backed away hastily and a sheepish grin overspread their faces.

Through the gap thus suddenly formed. Chesham glimpsed the gipsy in conversation with a man. Something in that man's appearance struck him as familiar. Where had he seen him before? Even as he saw the two in close conversation, the gipsy had nodded, slipped a note into his white corduroys, and gone out again to shout for more onlookers.

"The greatest monster of modern times, ladies and gentlemen!"

Memory came with a sudden flash to Chesham. He knew now where he had seen that man who had conversed with the gipsy. It was at the Koravian Embassy, the night he had danced there with Helen while seeking a means of escape.

A Koravian! So they had discovered him again. And he was safely captured, in a cage, with a chain to hold him and a steel band about his ankle. Prince Serge Lobai, of Koravia, exhibited in an ape's skin to the yokels of the English countryside. He was more a prisoner in the gipsy's hands than if Scotland Yard had pounced upon him.

"Walk up, ladies and gentlemen. One penny only!"

Shepherding another batch of country people, the gipsy entered the tent. As he saw the man-ape in the cage, a cruel grin spread over his swarthy face. With a shiver of horror Chesham realised that he was doomed to be a monkey at the end of a chain so long as the gipsy desired.

12

ESCAPE!

That was the one dominant idea in the mind of the man in a gorilla's skin and held by a steel band to a length of chain.

"I've had enough of this ape business," Chesham said, bluntly, to the gipsy at the end of the day's show. "Let me out of this cage."

The gipsy turned his back on him.

"Too dangerous," was his brief reply.

"Dangerous or not― I'll risk it," Chesham said, unconsciously rattling the cursed chain.

The gipsy swivelled his sallow face towards the bars.

"I tell you it's too dangerous."

"Hang the danger!" snorted Chesham. The gipsy thrust his hands into his pockets.

"There's a policeman on duty a hundred yards away," he said significantly.

Once again the chill of fear gripped Chesham.'

"If you don't let me out―" he began.

"Well?"

The gipsy was leering at him unconcerned.

"You've heard that I've killed one man," said Chesham, slowly.

The gipsy laughed outright.

"No chance of you killing anyone else, brother, "he remarked, testing the strength of the bars with a twist of his brown hand. "Not while you are in this cage, anyhow."

And, with the laughter still mocking him, Chesham saw the fellow stroll away to his tent where the ugly little dwarf woman was preparing supper.

The dwarf woman! The idea began to worm itself into his mind. She at moments held the key of the cage in her absurdly small hand. When she entered the cage, whip in hand, her plush riding habit trailing the sawdust, it gave him an opportunity to whisper to her. And he had noticed that, once or twice, she had lingered.

Yes, the dwarf woman was his only chance.

Late that evening she came to him with the mess of food that constituted his supper. With a sly grin on her little, wizened face, she pushed it towards him.

"Aren't you coming into the cage to-night?" he asked.

Her eyes narrowed, suspiciously.

"Why do you want me in the cage?" she questioned, in her squeaky voice.

From behind his gorilla mask Chesham considered her.

"Just for company." he replied, artlessly. She cackled at that. Then, recovering herself, she whispered:

"The boss has given orders that the cage is not to be opened."

"Why?"

"Because, you fool, he doesn't want to lose a good gorilla. You mean money to him."

She was turning away.

"Does money mean anything to you?" he asked.

He recalled now the greedy look she had given the batch of notes he had flung at the gipsy― how many nights ago? She was hesitating.

"One can do a lot with money," she squeaked.

Her hand fumbled in the red riding habit and produced a packet of cigarettes.

She lit one, and carelessly blew the smoke through the bars of the cage.

"There is plenty more money," he said slowly, "where the other came from."

"And what chance have you of getting it?" she commented, blowing smoke lazily in the air. "You, a man hunted by the police!"

"Every chance," he replied eagerly. "There are friends, rich friends, in London, willing to help me. A scribbled note from me, and they will pay you well."

She leaned against the cage, flicking ash from her cigarette. He had to sprawl full length in that filthy cage in order that his whispered words might not be carried by the wind to that lighted tent where the gipsy sat with a whisky bottle for company.

"How much?" she asked.

"Ten pounds."

She crushed the cigarette beneath her riding-boot and turned to go.

"Not enough," she squeaked.

He stretched out a hairy paw to detain her.

"Can you help me escape?" he pleaded.

She nodded.

"If the boss gets as drunk to-night as he does most nights, then it should be easy. I can steal the key from his pocket."

"Then what's your price?"

"One hundred pounds. Not a penny less," she said, and her mouth closed greedily.

He sighed. His adventures were becoming expensive for the Pirates.

"You'll have to accept a written note to my friends in London," he warned her.

"I'll take the risk," she replied surprisingly. "But I must have the note in my possession before I open the cage."

"Bring me paper and pencil and you shall have it," whispered Chesham eagerly.

"I'll bring it later," she nodded, and walked away.

In a fever of impatience, Chesham watched the night darken. For a time he stretched himself in the sawdust and tried to sleep. But it was impossible. Again and again his eyes sought the lighted tent where the gipsy sat drinking. The dwarf women was there, too. for Chesham could hear her shrill cackle mixed with the gipsy's growled oaths.

It seemed hours to the waiting and watching Chesham before the light in the tent moved. It seemed to swim out of the tent and come towards him, a few inches from the ground. Fascinated, he watched its crawling progress through the darkness. A few moments later it reached the cage. He then saw that the dwarf woman was holding the lamp in both hands.

She placed it on the ground and fumbled once again within that absurd riding habit.

"Here is the paper and pencil," she whispered. "Now write!"

Clumsily, with his hairy paws, Chesham scrawled a message to the chief at his address in Piccadilly.

"Dear Chief," he wrote; "this woman has helped me to escape. For her services I have promised her a hundred pounds. I beg of you to pay this. At the moment, my situation is desperate. But I'm not finished. My love to Helen."

He hesitated for a moment at the signature. Then, boldly, he scrawled, "Arthur Chesham."

The dwarf woman bent down and read the letter by the aid of the lamp. A grin slid her face when she came to the phrase, "My love to Helen." But she made no comment. She slipped the note carefully within her clothes and a moment later produced the treasured key. This she inserted in the lock, and the cage door swung open.

Another key opened the steel clamp about Chesham's leg. With a sigh of relief he crawled into the open. It was the work of moments to tear off the wretched gorilla skin and stand once again in those mud stained evening dress clothes which had garbed him for several days.

Once he was free, the dwarf woman doused the lamp. They stood for a few seconds in the darkness.

"How far am I from the beach at Dungeness?" he whispered.

"Ten miles," said the little creature. She pointed an arm in the darkness. "That is the direction. Get away, quickly."

Her little hand touched his for a second. He shivered at the touch.

"And what is going to happen to you?" he asked.

She cackled in the darkness.

"I go in the other direction, to London, to claim my money. It will not be wise for me to be found here when the boss wakes in the morning. Nor for you. Get away, you fool!"

The next moment Chesham was alone.

DAWN at Dungeness. The night wind had torn the sky to tatters. Remnants of cloud were strewn like golden ribbons across the blue expanse. A grey sea swirled up the beach and was sucked back noisily.

Over the waste of dunes staggered a strange figure. Fair hair ruffled by the wind, a dirty, unshaven face, and the flapping tails of what had once been an evening dress coat. It was Chesham. The man who had once been announced stentoriously as "His Royal Highness Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia," was now a miserable, hunted being, a sand rat on the beach.

Tear-dimmed by the wind, his eyes saw only a khaki expanse slavered by the grey spume. Once he sprawled full length over a boulder in the sand, and lay there like a dead man flung up by the tide. With an effort he raised himself. The seagulls mewed their lonely cry and wheeled towards the emptiness of sea and sky.

He came upon the cottage by surprise. He had scrambled up to the top of a sand dune, and there, below him, like a little white ship riding in yellow troughs, was the cottage. He ran towards it with the exultation of a Crusoe sighting a sail. Panting triumphantly, he reached a weather-beaten gate. Barely discernible was the sign "Sea View."

Chesham pushed open the gate. It squealed on its unoiled hinges. He staggered over a few rough cobbles and came up against the door. Desperately his hand went up for the latch. But, before he entered, caution asserted itself. He glanced round.

There was no sign of any human on the beach. It was given over to birds and crabs. In the distance a few reeds struggled for life with the sand and encompassed a pool over which gulls and crows mingled in chattering and screaming confusion. A smear of smoke on the sea horizon told of a steamer going down Channel.

"At last I'm safe," breathed Chesham.

He clicked the latch and entered the cottage. He found himself in a little passage. An old barometer hung askew on the wall. Chesham could not resist a glance at it. The needle was fixed at "Stormy," and had obviously remained there for months. He opened a door that led off from the passage and entered what appeared to be the living-room.

Two old armchairs, a couch, and a small table. The dank sea air had crept in, and the smell of decay tainted the atmosphere. The room had an abandoned look. Some one had left it the previous summer and never returned.

But there was something in that smell that caused Chesham to sniff hungrily. Was his imagination playing him tricks? There seemed to be the door of fried bacon and eggs in the atmosphere. Chesham swung round. It came from a door facing him.

Again he pressed the latch. The door swung open at his touch, and the sight that met his eyes rooted him to the spot. Two men were seated at a table In the room, calmly helping themselves to bacon and eggs. One man was even stretching out a hand for the buttered toast as Chesham swung open the door. Both looked up carelessly.

"Good morning," said one of the men. "Come right in, your Highness. We're expecting you!"

With a groan of despair Chesham swung back the door in their faces. That one glimpse had been enough. The two men were Koravians. He had last seen them at the Koravian Embassy in Park Lane. He made a move for the other door and the beach.

BUT even as he slammed the door of the dining-room, a third man had entered the living-room and now stood pointing an automatic pistol directly at his stomach. Another Koravian. There was a grim smile on the dark face.

"Breakfast is waiting, your Highness," said the man with the automatic. "I should advise you to accept our hospitality."

Chesham realised that he was cornered. He could only accept defeat.

"Thank you, I will," he murmured. "I should hate to be shot on an empty stomach. Even a man who is going to the scaffold is given breakfast."

The man with the automatic clicked his heels and gave a slight bow.

"I admire the decision and wit of your Highness. But you look tired. Please to enter."

There was a slight jerk of the pistol. Chesham shrugged his shoulders and pressed the latch of the door of the dining room once again. He saw that the two men at breakfast were still undisturbed. They had continued their meal. This time, however, they rose as Chesham entered.

"I must introduce to your Highness three Koravian subjects," said the man with the automatic.

"Not very loyal subjects," retorted Chesham.

"Loyal to the republic and the dictator, Jan Neruda," was the icy reply. "But we will let that pass. I am Colonel Sass, military attaché, and these two gentlemen are Lieutenants Mont and Simonitz, both of the Koravian Army."

There was a clicking of heels as the introductions were made.

"I can't say I'm glad to make your acquaintance, gentlemen," replied Chesham, with a wry smile, "but as I am promised breakfast I will put up with your company."

"A chair for Prince Serge," commanded Colonel Sass.

One of the Koravians hastened to obey. Chesham sank into it with a sigh of relief.

"And what now?" he asked.

"If Your Highness will give me your word of honour that you will not try to escape for, shall we say, the next two hours, I will put away this pistol and let you have breakfast in peace."

"And after the two hours, what then?" queried Chesham. "Scotland Yard?"

"We have other plans," said the Colonel. "But we will discuss those later. Have I your word, Prince Serge?"

"Of course," nodded Chesham.

Instantly the automatic disappeared. The Colonel rapped out orders, and in a few minutes Chesham was regaling himself with fried eggs and bacon and a steaming mug of coffee. He ate ravenously. It was the first decent meal he had had for days. Marmalade and buttered toast followed. The three Koravians watched him in silence.

Chesham himself broke the silence. He was drinking his third mug of coffee.

"There is just one thing that would make this breakfast perfect. Colonel," he said.

"And that is?"

"A cigarette."

"But certainly, Your Highness. There is a box here... allow me!"

He struck a match and lit the cigarette that Chesham had placed between his lips. Chesham inhaled greedily. He blew a little cloud to the ceiling of the cottage, leaned back in his chair, and sighed with content.

"And now get on with the hanging Colonel. The breakfast was so good that I suspect it was meant for a condemned man after all. What is to be my fate?"

Although he spoke easily and lazily, Chesham was contemplating the odds before him. They were heavy. The three men were all powerfully built. To fight his way out of the cottage, alone, was impossible. And the Koravians knew of that. They, therefore, treated him, their captive, with a sort of contented triumph. The Colonel laughed at his remark.

"Your fate is by no means unpleasant. Your Highness, providing you are tractable."

"Just as a matter of curiosity, Colonel, how did you discover this place?" asked Chesham.

"A little thoughtlessness on your part, Prince Serge," replied the Colonel with a smile. "When you handed the gipsy some money the other night, you also included a note signed by Mark Mann and giving this address. One of our men was in touch with the gipsy. We came here. Three hours ago we had a message from our man that you had escaped again. We judged that we only need wait..."

It was Chesham's turn to smile.

"At least I do not find you lacking in hospitality," he said.

The Colonel bowed.

"Thank you," he said. "But we must proceed to business. We hope to be of even further service to Your Highness. A liner is leaving Southampton to-morrow bound for Buenos Aires. We have taken the liberty of booking a berth in the prosaic name of Mr. John Thompson as far as Buenos Aires. We propose to motor Your Highness down to the liner to-morrow when, suitably disguised, you will be able to take possession of the berth allotted to Mr. John Thompson. I do not think we shall have any difficulty in evading Scotland Yard."

Chesham listened to this speech in blank astonishment.

"But why this sudden concern for my safety?" he asked. "Why not hand me over to Scotland Yard?"

The Colonel shook his head.

"That, it has been decided, would be a tactical error," he said. "More than that, it would be a political error."

"It would at least give you and that cursed ambassador the chance of seeing me hanged by the neck until I was dead."

"Perhaps some of us would not be entirely averse to the spectacle, Your Highness," said the Colonel coldly, "but the political repercussion in Koravia would be dangerous. If you were hanged by the police of this country, your own countrymen might regard you in the light of a martyr."

A grim smile crossed Chesham's face. "However much I have my country at heart," he admitted, " I will be frank and say that I have no desire to be made a martyr at the end of a rope."

"I appreciate your sentiments, Prince Serge. Incidentally, it makes my task easier. I am empowered to offer you a safe-conduct out of the country, a passage to Buenos Aires, and the payment of one thousand pounds."

"Someone is very generous," murmured Chesham. "And what are the conditions?"

The Colonel eyed him steadily.

"That you renounce all rights to the throne of Koravia, you and your heirs. A simple matter, Prince Serge. I have the document drawn up by our ambassador. Your signature on this witnessed by Lieutenants Mont and Simonitz will be sufficient."

As he spoke, the Colonel had drawn a document from his pocket. It was on heavy parchment and boldly penned. Chesham glanced at it, helping himself to another cigarette at the same time. It was an impressive document, full of high-sounding phrases and all the rhetoric of a royal proclamation.

Reading it through mechanically, Chesham considered his situation. These Koravians accepted without question the apparent fact that he was the real Prince Serge Lobai. The man whose body had remained in a London mortuary had kept his secret well. Chesham, a ruined gambler homing from Monte Carlo, had been picked out as a puppet for the grandiose schemes of Mark Mann. And the puppet had bluffed them all― royalists and republicans. He was accepted as Prince Serge.

But he still remained, at heart, Arthur Chesham. He was an ordinary young Englishman who had stumbled into an extraordinary series of adventures. He had suffered attempts on his life, hardships, and now capture by the Koravians. The puppet was caught. He was beaten. Why continue?

Yet never for one moment did he contemplate accepting the terms offered him. Logically, he should have acknowledged defeat, taken the thousand pounds, and sailed for South America. He had done his best for Mark Mann. But he had not done his best for Helen Mann. He could never again face those cool, grey eyes and the curling contempt of her lips if he gave in now.

He looked up from the document. The three men were watching him. Instinctively, they had come a little closer.

"And if I refuse to sign?" he asked quietly.

"We could kill you," said the Colonel steadily. "Koravia would regard us as true patriots."

With a careless gesture, Chesham tossed the document on the table among the greasy plates and empty mugs.

"I shall not sign," he said decisively

13

"OF course you realise, Prince Serge, that there are methods by which you could be made to sign this document."

"For example?" asked Chesham, blowing cigarette smoke to the roof.

"In the Koravian Army we have one or two traditional practices which have never been known to fail when applied to a spy or an enemy prisoner loath to confess."

The calm, cold-blooded, tone of the Colonel's conversation was an indication that he meant every word.

"Torture, eh?" said Chesham.

"I said traditional practices of the Koravian Army," corrected the Colonel. "And although we find ourselves in a cottage on a lonely beach, we have at least a good kitchen fire which can be used for many purposes."

Chesham smiled and shook his head.

"Royalty has its whims, you know," he replied. "At the moment I have a great desire for sleep. And, who knows, when I wake I may consider it worth while accepting the generous proposals made to me."

There was silence for a moment. The three captors looked into each other's faces. There was an imperceptible nod.

"Very well," said the Colonel. "If your Highness will give his word not to escape, I will extend parole until lunch time."

"Granted, my dear Colonel," yawned Chesham, with a wave of the hand. "And now, If there is anything in the nature of a bed here..."

He was led Into the lounge of the cottage. There was a couch there on which he stretched himself. The three men watched him warily. He closed his eyes.

The Colonel and the two lieutenants began whispering among themselves. Chesham tried to discover the gist of the conversation, but they had begun to talk in a strange, guttural language which he guessed to be Koravian. And although a few familiar German words appeared part of the vocabulary, Chesham could not follow the general trend. The few words he recognised referred to food.

But already the closing of his eyes had Its effect. Drowsiness was upon him. His desperate need of sleep was real. Those whispers lulled him. In less than five minutes he was fast asleep. The Colonel tip-toed over to him and looked down at the sleeping figure. He nodded to the others, satisfied.

"Better go into the village and buy those stores at once!" he commanded Lieutenant Mont.

The lieutenant clicked his heels. "Yes. Colonel."

"And do not let those vegetable-headed villagers suspect anything."

"No, Colonel."

"They already believe that we are here searching for smugglers. Because of that, nobody is likely to venture on the beach."

"I understand, Colonel."

"Then off you go. Lieutenant Simonitz and I will keep an eye on our distinguished prisoner."

"Yes, Colonel."

And with a final click of his heels, the lieutenant departed, a basket swinging from his arm. The other two saw him pass the window and disappear along the khaki waste of beach.

"THREE hours!" muttered the Colonel, glancing at his wrist-watch. "What the devil can have happened to Mont? It's only half an hour's walk to the village, and he has been gone three hours. Something must have happened."

Even as he spoke, a bell shrilled. Into that silence a bomb of noise had burst. A telephone bell was ringing insistently. The two men jumped.

"A telephone!" exclaimed Lieutenant Simonitz.

"Of course, it's a telephone," said the Colonel, impatiently.

"The telephone, according to Mann's note, is in a cupboard in this room. Find it Simonitz. I'll keep an eye on our friend here."

"Yes, Colonel," replied the lieutenant

He had traced the noise to an old-fashioned corner cupboard.

It was locked, but a key still remained in the lock. This he turned and. opening the polished and carved oak doors, disclosed a modern telephone cunningly concealed. He lifted the receiver, and looked inquiringly at the Colonel.

"All right, answer it, you fool!" snapped the Colonel.

"Hello—hello! Yes?"

Once again the lieutenant put down the receiver.

"Someone is asking for Colonel Sass!" he whispered. There was a scared look in his eyes.

"It's probably Mont," said the Colonel.

"No, Colonel."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly sure."

The Colonel pulled himself together.

"Take your pistol and keep an eye on this fellow," he warned. "If he dares to move― shoot."

Chesham smiled pleasantly.

"I've given you my word I won't escape until luncheon," he said. "By the way, when is luncheon?"

With a snort, the Colonel turned away. The other officer took up his position, automatic in hand.

"Who is speaking?" asked the Colonel Into the telephone.

A rather tired but pleasant voice answered.

"I wish to speak to Colonel Sass."

The Colonel hesitated a moment. He did not recognise the voice.

"This is Colonel Sass," he ventured.

"Ah, excellent," murmured the voice. "I thought you might be getting a little anxious about Lieutenant Mont."

"Well?"

The Colonel could not help betraying that he was anxious.

"Lieutenant Mont is now a prisoner."

"A prisoner! Of whom?"

"The royalist party of Koravia. I have the honour to inform you, Colonel Sass, that the revolution to restore the throne of Koravia to the rightful heir, Prince Serge Lobai, has now begun."

The Colonel went red in the face.

"Let me tell you," he burst forth,, "that your revolution is a failure from the start. Where is your leader?" he mocked.

A chuckle answered him.

"We understand that at the moment he is enjoying your hospitality, Colonel Sass. And that your hospitality is rather forced. But time is pressing. Let me tell you that the cottage from where you are speaking is already surrounded. You are watched and covered from every point. Unless Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia walks out alone and unharmed on to the beach before six o'clock this evening, you must take the consequences. And the consequences, my dear Colonel, I mean death."

There was a click as the receiver was replaced.

THE Colonel swung round. Lieutenant Simonitz was still guarding the prisoner, but both had obviously been listening to the staccato replies of the Colonel and wondering who the mysterious caller might be. Hope was dawning In Chesham's heart that the Pirates of Piccadilly were helping him in this desperate situation.

The Colonel was snorting out phrases in Koravian to his companion. He was repeating that strange conversation he had had over the telephone. Chesham cursed the fact that he could not understand.

"And they've got Mont," the Colonel added.

"They probably outnumber us, Colonel," said Lieutenant Slmonitz.

"Perhaps they do," admitted the Colonel. "And they could rush the cottage and seize the prince."

"They might."

The lieutenant drew in a deep breath.

"Then I suggest, my Colonel, that we telephone the Ambassador at once. The discovery of that telephone makes it possible. His Excellency will advise us― perhaps send help."

The eyes of the Colonel lit up.

"A splendid suggestion, Simonitz. I'll do it at once. We'll checkmate these royalists yet."

He scurried back across the room in the direction of the cupboard and its hidden telephone. He took down the receiver and waited for the operator to answer. But not a sound came forth. He tapped impatiently. Still the telephone was silent. Then realisation came to him. He cursed softly.

"The devils have cut the telephone wire," he said.

"Then we're isolated," gasped Lieutenant Simonitz.

The Colonel nodded. As he replaced the receiver, his gaze travelled to the top of the cupboard. A cabinet, with a switch and two dialling knobs, was fitted inside He touched the switch with his finger. Slowly, and as though from far away, music began to steal into the living room of the cottage.

"No, we're not completely isolated," he growled. "There's a wireless receiving set here."

As though in mockery of his words, a pleasant voice began to intone:

"The orchestra will now play, 'Wear a great big smile!'"

And as the orchestra clattered into the syncopated melody, Chesham stretched on the couch, flung back his head and chortled.

"BLUFF! Nothing else but sheer bluff!"

So decided Colonel Sass after a few' minutes' contemplation with himself. Lieutenant Simonitz nodded. He also wished to be reassured. The music, the sighing sea, and the loneliness of the waste beyond the window merely emphasised to the two Koravians their isolation. And although they each possessed automatic pistols and even kept them ready in their hands, the only comfortable person appeared to be the prisoner on the couch

"Bluff! Just sheer bluff!" emphasised the Colonel.

Both men had recovered the Koravian Army poise.

"And, if you'll keep an eye, my Colonel, on this prisoner of ours, who seems to find life rather amusing, I'll just step outside and have a look round."

Lieutenant Simonitz almost thumped his own chest. He felt splendidly brave.

"As a matter of ordinary precaution, why not?" confirmed the Colonel.

He was decidedly relieved that his companion had suggested it. For his part, he felt safer with an automatic in his hand facing the lounging figure on the couch than venturing upon a dank and wind-swept beach where birds wheeled and screamed weirdly.

"I'll leave the front door open," said Lieutenant Simonitz.

"Quite right," nodded the Colonel.

Unconsciously, both men had dropped into whispering. There was something uncanny about the beach beyond. The face of Simonitz had become set. His whole body was set. But this was in the nature of a military reconnoitre. Chesham, watching, could not help but admire. The man was determined to do his duty.

The lieutenant went out of the room.

The hush that descended was emphasised by the music from the wireless set dribbling to a conclusion. Somewhere in Hammersmith a man in the orchestra was correcting a faulty string of his violin. A few yards away sounded the footsteps of Lieutenant Simonitz as he reached the door.

There was the click of the latch. It was followed by a swirl of wind and the billowing of the chintz curtains against the window. And the soughing of the distant sea seemed to rush into the room and fill the silence.

The crunch of firm footsteps on the shingle. And then a derisive laugh from the man outside.

"Not a soul in sight, my Colonel. Not a soul―"

A whistling sound that leaped towards them with terrific rapidity. It was followed by a dull thud, and a picture hanging on the wall in the passage clattered to the floor. Almost simultaneously there was a scurrying of feet, and Lieutenant Simonitz tumbled into the room. His face had paled. There was a scared expression in his eyes.

"They fired―" he breathed.

"Have they hit you?" gasped the Colonel.

"No, missed, luckily."

"Then go back and close the door, you fool."

It is to the credit of Simonitz that discipline asserted itself mechanically. But it was almost on all fours that he went back to the door. The Colonel had cocked an ear and was listening.

"Bolt it!" he commanded.

It was with relief that he heard the bolt shot. At the same time there was a crash of glass from the window, and another thud against the wall of the cottage. A bullet had splintered its way through the window, and flattened against the stone. Incidentally, it had missed the Colonel's head by a few inches. He also paled visibly.

"We must barricade ourselves and fight to the end," said the Colonel. "Remember, Simonitz, we are soldiers, and the Republic has its eyes upon us."

"The next item to be played by the orchestra will be 'Valse Caprice,' by Rubenstein," went on the inconsequential voice from the wireless set.

Simonitz had already grappled boldly with an old chest that was lying in the passage, and was dragging it across the doorway.

"And when six o'clock comes, my Colonel," he gasped, "will you surrender Prince Serge to these men on the beach?"

Sitting with the automatic in his hand. Colonel Sass shook his head.

"At six o'clock I shall shoot him dead," he said, grimly.

With a sigh, Chesham rose to his feet. The Colonel's eyes narrowed dangerously. But Chesham merely smiled at him.

"While you are busy barricading the cottage," he murmured, "I'll help by preparing lunch. I'm really very hungry."

And he blithely set to work to lay the table.

14

"IS he still there?" demanded Colonel Sass.

Sprawled like a man beneath the parapet of a trench, the back of the couch as a parados against the window. Lieutenant Simonitz directed his binoculars towards the beach.

"He's still there, my Colonel. A tall man in tweeds, with waders. The gun is under his arm. He looks like a man who is duck-shooting. And he stands in the little lake which commands a view of the house."

The Colonel growled an oath.

"Those damned villagers think he is duck-shooting, no doubt."

"Yes, and several times he has fired at ducks overhead," added Simonitz.

"Did he hit them?" asked the Colonel, anxiously.

"Every time," sighed Simonitz.

"And when he is not firing at ducks he risks a chance shot at us, curse him," grunted the Colonel. "If only we had rifles he wouldn't dare to stand there."

"A pistol shot is hopeless at this range," commented the Lieutenant, still keeping the binoculars fixed towards the beach.

The wireless set continued its inconsequential programme. Gramophone records had followed the orchestra. An ingenuously bored voice announced each item and the number of the record, and Chesham had sat there listening with the apparent enthusiasm of a real radio fan. But all the time his mind was planning the possibility of escape and wondering who that figure in tweeds and waders in the lake beyond the dunes might be. Had Mark Mann staged this act of the drama?

At six o'clock, the voice had announced over the telephone, Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia must walk out of that cottage on to the beach, unarmed and alone.

But at six o'clock they intended to shoot him dead. He imagined he saw the Colonel's fingers tightening upon the automatic.

Like an old blanket drawn over the head, clouds brought darkness to the beach. The two Koravian officers considered the situation. They dared not sit in the darkness with a captive whose sprawling, indolent posing might only be masking a readiness to leap upon them at the slightest relaxing of attention. On the other hand, a light in the cottage presented a definite mark to those who lurked outside.

"Well, let it be a gesture," decided the Colonel. "Light the lamp, Lieutenant. It will show them that we are not afraid."

Lieutenant Simonitz hastened to obey. He brought forth an oil lamp of the old-fashioned type. He trimmed the wick, struck a match, and replaced the globe that surrounded it. The yellow glow brought with it a reassuring atmosphere to the two Koravians, who felt themselves faced by mysterious odds.

"It makes one feel better, my Colonel," said Lieutenant Simonitz, with a smiling nod.

"That is so, Lieutenant," agreed the Colonel.

"Might I ask you the exact time?" drawled Chesham. "A man in my position should be kept well informed."

"It is exactly five o'clock," said the Colonel. "And in one hour―"

He stopped. There was a thunderous knock at the front door. Instinctively, the three men became rigid. A tense silence reigned. They waited.

Once again the knock resounded. It seemed to shake the little cottage lost amidst the sand dunes of Dungeness.

"Who can it be?" whispered the Lieutenant.

"The enemy—no doubt," said the Colonel. "Can you see anyone through the window?"

Cautiously, the Lieutenant, crawled to the broken window, from which the curtains were billowing in the breeze. But he had no sooner reached it than a pleasant voice rang out.

"I say, you fellows! Please open the door! This is just an informal call. I ought to have come weeks ago. But I didn't know anyone was here."

The Colonel and the Lieutenant were startled. They looked at each other. It was the Colonel who recovered himself first.

"Who are you?" he asked gruffly.

"Well, if you'll open the door you'll see. I'm the Reverend James Blount. You're in my parish, you know. And if you can give me a cup of tea, I'll be glad of it. It's a goodish walk from the village."

The Lieutenant looked at the Colonel. The Colonel nodded.

"He may be Just the man we want," he whispered.

"Well, good evening, my friend," came the jolly voice from outside, as the door opened. "You seem cosy in here!"

"Yes, we are... cosy," said the voice of Simonitz.

He had closed the door.

His hand hesitated on the bolt. But the clergyman who stood before him seemed innocent of any suspicion. He was taking off a mackintosh. The next moment he strolled into the living-room in full view of the lamplight.

"Ah, good evening to you all," he went on, with that enforced jollity in his tone.

Colonel Sass had brought a chair up to the table, and seated himself opposite Chesham. Beneath the table his right hand held the automatic pointed towards his prisoner. The Colonel gave a quick glance at the newcomer.

He was surprisingly incongruous. A pleasant-faced young man in correct clergyman's garb. Fair hair, blue eyes, and a laugh every few minutes. He obviously found life jolly, his parish jolly, in fact, there seemed to be the danger that he would be jolly in the pulpit! A Church of England clergyman with an optimistic belief in his mission.

"Of course we ought to have met long ago, Mr... er ... ?"

"Sass," supplied the Colonel.

"Ah, quite. Mr. Sass." The clergyman laughed. "Rather a jolly name, I think."

"I never thought of it as particularly jolly," said the Colonel aggressively.

"Didn't you?" Mechanically the clergyman rested his arms and joined his fingertips together. "Well, I find it rather jolly. Don't you?"

He turned upon the rather bewildered Lieutenant Simonitz, who, at this sudden confrontation, became even more bewildered.

"Yes," he admitted doubtfully. "Perhaps it is."

The Colonel Glared at him. But the Reverend James Blount was making himself thoroughly at home. He beamed at Chesham.

"You're dressed very strangely, my friend," he said, and laughed again.

Chesham suddenly realised that he was still in the remnants of his evening dress that had clung to him throughout his adventures on Romney Marsh.

"Yes, I suppose it does seem queer," he murmured, and eyed the Colonel as he spoke.

"An old suit that he uses for work on the beach," explained the Colonel. "Which reminds me― er―"

"Blount is my name. The Reverend James Blount."

"Yes, of course. Did you see anyone about the beach as you came along, Mr. Blount?"

"Not a soul," replied the clergyman. "Why do you ask? This is hardly the time of day, or, for that matter, the time of year, for people to be found on this beach."

"We were expecting a friend," said the Colonel, casually.

"I see." Obviously the clergyman did not see, but he dismissed the affair with a laugh. "And now," he went on, glancing round a little archly, "didn't someone offer me a cup of tea?"

Simonitz looked inquiringly at his superior officer. The Colonel nodded. Simonitz disappeared into the kitchen. He could be heard filling the kettle.

"I wanted to make your acquaintance," said the Rev. Blount. edging his chair a little nearer the Colonel, "as I have no doubt you are staying here for some time."

"Not very long, I'm afraid," replied the Colonel grimly.

The flow of aimless chatter had quite lulled the Colonel's suspicions. He watched the young man dabbing his fingertips together and at the same time cudgelled his brains for some method by which the clergyman could be induced to get back to the village and bring help. In the kitchen beyond, the kettle was singing. The atmosphere of that living-room had suddenly become normal.

But even as the Colonel relaxed for a moment and leaned back in his chair, the thing happened with startling rapidity. The nervous white hands of the clergyman suddenly jerked across the table. There was a crash. The lamp smashed to the ground. The room was plunged into darkness. And the startled Chesham leaped to his feet, to hear a voice yell :

"Get out quickly!"

15

"GET out, quickly!"

That voice and the darkness brought sudden recognition to Chesham. He knew now who the clergyman was. The laughing young man who had saved him twice before.

"Get out!"

At the same time there was a shattering report. The colonel had fired.

"Simonitz!" he shouted. "Where are you?"

Chesham was struggling with the latch. Even as his fingers touched it there was another shot in the darkness. A bullet whistled by his head and buried itself in the wall. He jerked the door open and as he passed the window could hear Colonel Sass cursing fluently in Koravian. The next moment there was a sheet of flame. The lamp, smashed to the floor had caught alight. The pool of oil was blazing furiously.

Another shot, and this time a cry of pain. That cry caused Chesham to hesitate. Had the young man been hit? He turned. He would not desert him on this occasion.

A shadow detached itself. A laugh in the darkness and he realised that the young man was at his side.

"A near thing," muttered the "clergyman," "but we did it."

"But who are you?"

"Don't ask silly questions." was the reply. "Run along the beach. Keep by the sea for half a mile. Someone is waiting for you. Au revoir and good luck!"

And the next moment the shadow had disappeared into the darkness again.

Chesham hesitated no longer. With his heart thumping excitedly, he began to run alongside that ghostly sea.

It seemed to Chesham that he ran miles, stumbling over sand dunes and once falling into that salty, dragging sea before another shadow came out of the darkness and took him by the hand. And at the first touch of those cool fingers he knew her at once.

"Helen!"

"Arthur!"

Instinctively they embraced. There on the beach, with the wind blowing her hair and whipping her frock, he knew he loved her and was loved in return. Nothing else mattered. The days and nights of that agonising man hunt, of escapes, of a cottage in flames—all were forgotten in that one embrace.

"You're all right?" she asked, and there was a sob of anxiety in her voice.

"Absolutely," he replied, and kissed her cool wet lips again.

"This is madness," she sighed.

"Splendid madness," he laughed. "I love you."

"And I love you. Oh, so much, my dear."

"My dear!"

Once again love was finding itself inexpressible. These trite repetitions. What did they mean? Nothing, and yet everything to lovers. Her fingers entwined themselves in his.

"We must hurry, my darling!" she whispered.

He found himself being led into the darkness. She pushed her way over the beach, climbed a wall, and jumped into what appeared to be a field. He followed blindly, trustingly.

Through the darkness they ran, and then a strange beast loomed up. It appeared as something monstrous, and as they approached it roared into life.

"An aeroplane!"

"Yes," she replied. "Get aboard quickly.

"And you?"

"I come with you."

He was content. He had no questions to ask. Now that he was with Helen, nothing else mattered. He was dimly aware of a pilot, goggled, peering at the controls lit by dim lights.

In a few seconds he was aboard, hauling Helen after him. The engine was roaring lustily, and the whole machine trembling with power and anxious to be loosed into the sky. The pilot glanced back over his shoulder.

Helen nodded.

The aeroplane began to move. It trundled slowly over the sand. Then the nose was pointed towards the sea. The pilot let out the engine to the full. The roar was deafening. Like something shot from a catapult they raced across the sand. The sea came rushing towards them. It seemed that they must dive into the depths. But just as the white foam seemed to touch their wheels, they were in the air and climbing towards the clouds.

The pilot banked. The machine swung round. Chesham leaned forward and gazed down below. Someone seemed to have lit a bonfire on the beach. Then he suddenly realised what that fire meant. It was the cottage In flames.

Simultaneously, the phosphorescent dial of a clock In the machine caught his eye.

Six o'clock.

It was the hour chosen for his death by those two determined men, now somewhere below on that windswept beach of Dungeness.

Once again the machine banked and the nose was pointed seawards. Chesham could see nothing but an oily heaving blackness beneath him. The Channel.

He stretched out his hand and closed it upon Helen's. He leaned forward.

"Where are we going?" he yelled, his voice sounding faint and reedy above the roar of the engines.

"To Koravia," she answered.

Her lips were tantalisingly near. He bent over and kissed her.

16

IT had been a great adventure.

Arthur Chesham admitted that, as he sat in the throne room of the palace at Lontz, the capital of Koravia. In this room with its big windows, its Louis Quinze furniture, its mirrors, its heavily gold framed portraits of the rulers of Koravia in the past, a man might well feel that the fight had been worth while.

From these big windows the whole city spread itself, a series of red roofs out of which jutted the precipices of the modern commercial buildings, and the knobbed and gargoyled towers of Koravia's cathedral.

Like a cinema film, his mind was screening the many exciting events of the past few days. Helen, the adorable Helen, had been there In the beginning. Together they had flown from Dungeness, across the channel, and half-way across Europe. At ten thousand feet they had winged over the Koravian frontier, and descended on a secret aerodrome not more than fifty miles from the capital.

There Chesham had been acclaimed Prince Serge Lobai, the king who had come to claim his rightful throne. Waiting at the aerodrome had been General Mikzath, splendid in military uniform, gorgeous in his multi-colored decorations. His sword had glistened in the sunlight, and he had kneeled awkwardly with spurred cavalry boots to greet his future King.

And that old patriot, Ferenc Jokai, who had brought forth from its camphor-scented chest the old frock coat that he had worn as Prime Minister, had come forward and kissed him warmly on both cheeks.

"Welcome, Prince Serge, to your throne!" he had cried.

And a military band had blared forth the national anthem while Chesham, dressed in the uniform that had been hurriedly supplied him in Paris, stood stiffly at the salute. Many people had cheered. Old peasants, tears in their eyes, had come forward to kiss his hands. And while the cheering went on and the band played with solemn patriotic fervour, the sallow faced Jewish financier, Sholom Asch, had looked on sardonically.

It was to him that Chesham had gone for news.

"The coup d'etat is almost complete," General Mikzath had declared proudly. "The army is ready to march upon the capital if Your Majesty will take your place at its head. The people of Lontz are already lining the streets to greet Your Majesty and acclaim you their king."

"Justice has triumphed," old Ferenc Jokai had declared. "The day for which I have waited many years has come at last. A tyrant has been overthrown and a king of honour and the elect of the people ascends the throne. Long live Koravia and King Serge."

Sholom Asch had merely remarked, dryly:

"The dictator, Jan Neruda, still rules. The revolution has hardly begun."

Arthur Chesham had risen to the occasion. Every hour had come telegraphic messages from Mark Mann, confined to his chair in a house in Piccadilly, urging him to seize power, to enter the capital, to have himself crowned King of Koravia.

In this hectic preparation for the advance upon the capital Helen had disappeared.

"I am going into the streets of the capital," she had said. "My dear, I shall be waiting there for you."

"But why not stay and go with me?" he had begged.

"Because there is work yet to be done," she had answered.

She was still the mysterious Helen, the sphinx with the grey eyes, despite the love that existed between them. There was still so much to explain, which she had not yet explained. That laughing young man, for example.

"He has saved my life three times," he had said to her as they flew towards Koravia. "Who is he?"

"I really don't know," she had replied, smiling at him.

There had been a twinge of jealousy at that.

"But how came he to rescue me from the cottage at Dungeness?"

"He met me in the village that morning. I had arrived, thinking you might possibly have reached the cottage and! would need my assistance. He met me, explained that you were a prisoner in the hands of the Koravians, and that he intended to free you."

"Was he one of the Pirates of Piccadilly?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Then who was he?"

"I don't know. He's a mystery."

"Who supplied the aeroplane?"

"That was Daddy. When the young man gave me the news, I telephoned Piccadilly. Daddy said he was sending an aeroplane at once. You were to be rescued and taken to Koravia. The revolution had begun and you were needed."

"But the essential thing, nobody seems to know," he argued.

"What is that?"

"The name of that young man― the part he is playing in this adventure."

There it had ended.

General Mikzath had come forward at that moment and begged King Serge to review the personal bodyguard that had been formed for the entrance of His Majesty into the capital. When the review had been completed, Chesham discovered that Helen had disappeared. She had left one precious scrawled message behind her:

"I love you, darling. When you reach the city, I shall be waiting for you."

That bombastic cavalcade to the capital had begun. lt was a shouting, singing, patriotic army drunk with its own fervour. They trundled some modern artillery and a few armoured cars, and two aeroplanes soared above for scouting purposes.

"You talked of capturing the broadcasting station of Koravia," Chesham had said to General Mikzath. "Is it accomplished?"

"It will be, Your Majesty. It will be," the general had assured him.

Delay and disappointment. Discovery, of treachery. Spies. An ambush on the road to the capital. Shots in the sunshine and a sudden scattering of the patriots. A rally, and they had fought their way through. And after two days, their numbers slightly increased, they had reached the capital.

It had been easy to rush the western suburbs. There was no resistance. Within an hour they were approaching the streets of the city itself. Already the palace was within sight. One of the aeroplanes had dropped bombs. The other had been shot down by an enemy attack from the sky.

THEN the dictator, Jan Neruda, had struck. The Republican troops had swarmed forth from all sides. Too late the royalists realised that they had been enticed into the streets of Lontz so that the slaughter might be more effective. The western suburbs had been a bait to the invading forces and they had swallowed it. Machine-gun fire began to rattle down upon them from all sides.

Barricades were hurriedly erected. A furniture shop was looted, and the contents spewed over the road. Behind a mattress the man who would be a king lay and fired with a rifle until it was too hot to hold in his blistered hands. Closer and closer the grey uniformed figures of the Republican troops had come. Genera: Mikzath had disappeared. So had Ferenc Jokai, the patriot. Chesham crawled to where a dead man lay and took his rifle. Once again he levelled it above the barricade and fired. A grey form pitched forward.

And now, at last, he sat in the throne-room of the palace at Lontz. The sun blazed through the windows. He could see the medley of red roofs and hear the clash of the cathedral bells in the distance.

And opposite him sat Jan Neruda, the dictator― a wizened, grey-faced man who held a pen in his pale, rheumatic fingers.

"A bad business, my young friend," his bloodless lips were saying. "You will be taken into the courtyard and shot at dawn to-morrow."

And the pen had scrawled the signature of the dictator at the end of the death warrant.

Two hours later, while Chesham sat in a cell behind the palace listening to the measured tread of the sentry on duty, another figure was seated in the throne room before the dictator. This time it was a woman—Helen Mann.

She had lost something of her poise, something of her coolness. For she was pleading with the dictator for the man she loved, the man who meant everything to her, despite the fact that he had gambled and lost a throne.

"I tell you this man is not Prince Serge Lobai," she insisted. "He is an Englishman― a man whom I discovered by chance in the Golden Arrow train. You can't sentence him to be shot."

"But I have—and I intend that he shall be shot!" Jan Neruda said decisively.

"Don't you believe me when I tell you that he is an Englishman?" cried Helen.

"I don't disbelieve you," the dictator replied. "But as the man himself insists on being regarded as Prince Serge Lobai, I have no other option but to see him safely shot."

"He keeps up this pretence for my sake," she said wildly.

The dictator permitted a smile.

"You are a very beautiful young lady, but also a detestable nuisance to me and my Government. I can assure you that if it were not for complications with your own country, I should not hesitate for a moment."

"What do you mean?"

"I should have you shot with this young man with whom you are apparently infatuated," the dictator said, imperturbably. "As it is I intend to see you conducted to the frontier and never permitted to enter Koravia again.

"Your train leaves for Vienna at eleven-fifteen in the morning. Two officers of the palace guard will escort you to the station. Good afternoon..."

And with a casual nod, Helen was taken away, back to her own cell.

BUT the dictator, so sure of himself, did not realise, when he went to bed late that evening, how unsure he was of the country. For at the very moment when he was yawning over the pages of Italian statecraft as propounded by Messer Niccolo Machiavelli, a single shot rang out in a street not a hundred yards away from the palace that was the signal for real revolution.

Within ten minutes pandemonium was raging in the centre of Lontz. Within half an hour the rattle of machine guns had been joined by the sickening crash of bombs dropped from the sky by aeroplanes in the darkness. Houses collapsed in a cloud of dust. Bugles blared. A whole street went up in flames. A glare began to flicker the windows of the palace. And the dictator, struggling to rid himself of a night-shirt and dress in a suit of English tweeds, heard a cry that he had been dreading for years.

"Vive le roi!"

"Long live the King."

"The car is waiting, your Excellency." The cold, curt tones of the officer of the Palace guard roused the dictator to the realisation of immediate flight.

"Where do we go?" he asked.

"There is an aerodrome, less than 50 miles away, your Excellency. We have a plane there ready to carry you beyond the frontier."

"And then?"

The officer shrugged his shoulders. It was none of his business. Where did exiles go, anyway?

"I am told that Monte Carlo is amusing, your Excellency."

The dictator cursed softly. In five minutes he was dressed. In six, he had stuffed a batch of foreign securities and bonds within an attaché case which he gripped in his rheumatic fingers. He cast a final glance round the bedroom, the room from which he had ruled Koravia. He sighed and followed the impatient young officer.

The Prince, by Machiavelli, lay neglected and forgotten on the rich carpet.

An hour later the Palace surrendered. Revolutionary troops clattered along the corridors. Bugles sounded throughout the courtyard. Rifles were piled together. Shots began to be scattered and spasmodic. The revolution was over.

As the dawn was streaking the sky, a guard marched Arthur Chesham to the courtyard. An open grave was waiting there. The guard and the prisoner passed it, and entered the Palace.

ONCE AGAIN Chesham found himself in the throne room that looked over the capital of Koravia.

It was a laugh, a familiar laugh, that greeted him. Seated there was the young man who had made so many mysterious entrances and exits in these adventures. And the jovial face was flushed with pleasure as he stretched forth a hand and greeted Chesham.

"So we meet again, eh?"

Gone was the clergyman's garb. This time the fair-haired young man was in the well-cut lounge suit that told of Savile Row. A grey lounge suit that displayed his slim, athletic figure to perfection.

"Will you tell me," begged Chesham, as he took the strong hand in his, "who you are?"

Once again the young man laughed.

"I happen to be Prince Serge Lobai of Koravia."

"You― Prince Serge!"

The young man nodded.

"For many years exiled in England, and now returned to Koravia, the leader of a successful royalist revolt."

"But why didn't you reveal yourself earlier?" asked Chesham.

"For the success of the cause it was necessary to keep my freedom," the young man replied, "and when, after some years of quiet security in England, there came a request that I should attend a dinner-party with the Pirates of Piccadilly, I sent a deputy."

"Then it was the deputy―"

"Exactly. I explained the circumstances to a poor devil of a half-starved valet and paid him to go in my place. He was glad of the job, but the poor chap died on the doorstep in Piccadilly and Mark Mann thought it was the real prince. Then you came on the scene. I had not bargained for you. But I decided to wait in the background and see how events developed. Incidentally, I laid my plans and to-night brought them to a successful conclusion."

"You did more than that, sir," said Chesham gratefully. "You helped me out of several awkward situations."

"And I also placed you in one or two," laughed the young man. "There is Phoebe, for example."

"Phoebe! Then she really is―"

"My wife. A very excellent wife. At this moment I am hoping that a telegram is being delivered at number 15 Cherry Walk, Clapham, where I enjoyed much domestic bliss, and that the telegram will cause Phoebe to pack and be along here in a few days."

"I guess she'll come," ventured Chesham.

"I'm sure she will," grinned the real Prince Serge Lobai. "She always had an insatiable desire to wear red velvet and be called a queen."

"She will be Queen of Koravia?"

"Why not? Koravia will soon be as proud of their queen as I am of my wife."

"Arthur!"

A cry from behind. Chesham turned. Helen was coming towards him. He forgot the revolution, forgot the dictator, forgot the newly-acclaimed King of Koravia. He saw only a woman whose grey eyes were shining with love for him. And when a man sees that, the whole world is lost― and well lost.

TWO days later. Mark Mann, still confined to his invalid chair in his house in Piccadilly, was chuckling over a batch of telegrams that he held in his hand.

Julian, the attentive Julian, was by his side. Also the dark young man. Geoffrey Winterton, scowling at the good fortune that the telegrams revealed.

"Another successful coup for the Pirates, Geoffrey," chirruped Mark Mann. "The concession for the mines has been granted. King Serge has come to an agreement and young Chesham has got it through. A clever young man that. He's brought a half-million profit to me."

"Are you certain he hasn't taken something away?" scowled Geoffrey.

Mark Mann chuckled.

"You're right, Geoffrey. I'm afraid I've lost Helen. And, I'm sorry to say it, but I'm afraid you've lost her, too."

The one-time medical student nodded.

"I think I shall take a more dispassionate interest in physiology in future," was his bitter comment.

But Mark Mann laughed. He turned to the attentive Julian.

"I have a fancy for some new ties. Julian," he said. "I would like you to wheel me to the Burlington Arcade this morning."

"Yes, Chief."

And Julian winked a wicked eye at the shattered Winterton.

The End.

Text Source: Australian Women's Weekly 7 September 1935

Supplement

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16