BY Louis Tracy 1915...

"Taxi, sir? Yes, sir. No. 4 will be yours." A red-faced, loud-breathing commissionaire, engaged in the lucrative task of pocketing sixpences as quickly as he could summon cabs, vanished in a swirl of macintoshes and umbrellas. People who had arrived at the theater in fine weather were emerging into a drizzle of rain. "All London," as the phrase goes, was flocking to see the latest musical comedy at Daly's, but all London, regarded thus collectively, is far from owning motor cars, or even affordi

So petrified was Theydon by coming face to face with the last person breathing whom he expected to meet in that room, that he stumbled over a small chair which lay directly between him and his hostess. At any other time the gaucherie would have annoyed him exceedingly; in the existing circumstances, no more fortunate incident could have happened, since it brought Evelyn Forbes herself unwittingly to the rescue. "I have spoken twenty times about chairs being left in that absurd position," she cri

Theydon, though blessed, or cursed, with an active imagination—which must surely be the prime equipment of a novelist—was shrewd and level-headed in dealing with everyday affairs. It was no small achievement that the son of a country rector, aided only by a stout heart, a university education and an excellent physique—good recommendations, each and all, but forming the stock-in-trade of many a man on whose subsequent career "failure" is writ large—should have forced himself to the front rank of

Theydon's journalistic experiences had been, for the most part, those of the "special correspondent," or descriptive writer. He had never entered one of those fetid slums of a great city in which, too often, murder is done, never sickened with the physical nausea of death in its most revolting aspect, when some unhappy wretch's foul body serves only to further pollute air already vile. It was passing strange, therefore, that Winter had no sooner opened the door of No. 17 than the novice of the p

With the morning Theydon brought a mature and impartial judgment to bear on his perplexities. The average man, if asked to form an opinion on any difficult point, will probably arrive at a saner decision during the first pipe after breakfast than at any other given hour of the day. Excellent physiological reasons account for this truism. The sound mind in a sound body is then working under the most favorable conditions. It is free from the strain of affairs. The cold, clear morning light divests

Theydon escorted Miss Beale downstairs. As they passed the closed door of No. 17, the lady shivered. "To think that within the next few days I would have been staying there with Edith, and planning evenings at the theater before going to Newquay!" she murmured; there was a pitiful catch in her voice that told better than words how the remainder of her existence would be darkened by the tragedy. At best she was a shrinking, timid little woman, for whom life probably held but narrow interests. Suc

Even the boldest may flinch when confronted with that which is apparently a manifestation of the supernatural. Theydon and Forbes were standing in a chamber of death. To the best of their belief they were alone in an otherwise empty flat, and those ominous words coming from some one unknown and unseen blanched their faces with terror. But Theydon was a healthy and athletic young Englishman, and Forbes was of the rare order which combines a frame of exceptional physique with a mind accustomed to

Furneaux apparently made up his mind with reference to the contents of a somewhat enigmatic message after one quick, unerring perusal. "The man who wrote that took a great many things for granted," he said. "He assumed, firstly, that you knew of Mrs. Lester's death and understood its significance; secondly, that you are aware of the nature of the 'terms' he will offer; thirdly, that you may hesitate between compliance and threatened death. 'Y. M.,' of course, can be read as 'Young Manchus.' Even

The American's easy-going badinage provided the best sort of tonic. Theydon laughed as he transferred the pistol from one pocket to the other. "My motto is 'Defense, not Defiance,'" he said. "I hope sincerely that I shall not be called on to shoot, or even threaten any one. Using firearms, although for self-protection, is a very serious matter in this country. May I ask your name? Mine's Theydon. I live in those mansions we have just quitted." "And I'm George T. Handyside, 21,097 Park Avenue, Ch

Though Theydon was in first-rate athletic trim, that blow on the throat had nearly stunned him. The effort to rise promptly and bear a hand in the imminent capture of one whom he regarded as something akin to a homicidal maniac had imposed a further strain on his resources, and it was possible that he did actually lose his senses during a couple of seconds. In all likelihood, too, he changed color slightly, because the next thing he was aware of was the note of alarm in Evelyn's voice when she c

Consternation reigned for a while at the entrance to the Royal Devonshire. Men craned their necks and women uttered nervous little shrieks. But Evelyn Forbes was endowed with a vigorous frame and a splendidly vital spirit, and she recovered her senses before she could be carried into the vestibule. The fact that she had fainted, too, brought to the aid of her waking senses the innate horror of her race and class for anything approaching a "scene," and she was almost unnaturally collected in spee

Mrs. Forbes, a slim, elegant woman, looked as if she were her daughter's elder sister. Although driven by hay fever to the seaside regularly at the beginning of the London season, she was far from being a malade imaginaire . She did not go willingly. Each year she hoped against hope that the annoying ailment would not make itself felt, yet no sooner was the month of May well established than for six or seven weeks she had either to drag her husband and daughter away from the metropolis or live b

Theydon gazed dazedly at the skull for the best part of a minute. His state of mind was that of a man, utterly incredulous, who nevertheless thinks he sees a ghost. Then he recovered himself and laughed angrily, harshly, because he had not succeeded better in controlling his nerves. He examined the paper. It bore no writing of any kind. It was precisely similar in color and texture to the two typed slips which Forbes had received, but the sender had evidently thought that the skull was symbolica

Furneaux, with that phenomenally clear mind of his, had perceived and expressed in one trenchant sentence the outstanding and almost unique feature of the tragic mystery which centered around the death of Edith Lester. Theydon's connection with either international finance or the rebirth of China was remote as that of the man in the moon. Yet he had been pitchforked by fate into an active and, indeed, dominating influence over those phases of both undertakings which were peculiar to London. They

Though a prey to that most burthensome of cares—the uneasy consciousness of an impalpable yet ever-threatening evil—Theydon was not blind to the humorous element in the present situation. Mrs. Paxton, of course, did not know who the little man accompanying the Chinamen was. She had seen her brother stalk the motor car and its presumed occupants in the most approved melodramatic fashion, and could not help noticing his complete discomfiture. Naturally she imagined he had encountered a pair of per

Although, as shall be seen, the final and complete defeat and extinction of the London section of the Young Manchus were directly due to forces set in motion by Furneaux, it was Winter's painstaking way of covering the ground that unearthed the fraternity's meeting place, and thus brought matters to a head speedily. For the rest, events followed their own course, and great would have been the fame of the prophet who predicted that course accurately. In later days, when more ample knowledge was a

Now, Len Shi had communicated one vital fact to his compatriots which they had carefully concealed from the detectives. The opening campaign against Forbes had practically ended that day. Thenceforth, for a week, the Young Manchus meant to separate, revert to Chinese costume, live in Chinese boardinghouses in the East End, and thus utterly mislead and bamboozle the police, who, in their hunt for the miscreants, would be searching for Chinamen in European dress and living in European style. Winte