"No, Mollie. Perhaps I am exaggerating matters, though the history of this week would make strange reading if published broadcast. Indeed I shall now urge on Mr. Forbes the advisability of sending the facts to the press. London would be stirred to its depths, and every one of its citizens would be quick to observe and report the presence of Chinamen or Japanese in the West End. Some innocent Orientals would suffer, but the police might at least be enabled to capture the pestiferous gang which has committed this latest outrage. Just think of some cold-blooded scoundrel shooting at a sweet-mannered and gentle lady like Mrs.

Forbes!"

"Surely the authorities can protect her."

"That is the wild absurdity of the position. Of course, you didn't hear what Mr. Forbes said. The armed detectives on duty in his house actually saw the Chinaman who fired the shot which wounded her, leaning out through the window of a closed car. But they cannot blaze away at any passer-by merely because he is, or resembles, an Asiatic. What they dare not do, however, he and I will endeavor cheerfully. Bates!"

"Yes, sir," came the cry from a bedroom.

"If you are packing two bags, put that pistol and a box of cartridges in the smaller one."

"Yes, sir."

Mrs. Paxton at this crisis proved herself a woman of spirit.

"I think you're right, Frank," she said quietly. "I refuse to believe that any British court of justice would blame any man for defending the lives of his wife and daughter, nor you for helping him. If the peacefully disposed Chinese residents in London wish to avoid risk let them keep away from No. 11. Fortescue Square. May I come with you?"

"You, Mollie?"

He looked at her with troubled eyes. For the moment such was the fire in his brain he did not understand.

She laughed gallantly.

"I don't mean as one of the garrison," she said. "May I not make the acquaintance of these people? Sometimes, the mere knowledge that others are aware of one's troubles and sympathize with one is comforting. Miss Beale is not expecting me till tea time. I told her I might lunch with you. Indeed, I promised to call at her hotel for her letters, and that is halfway on your road."

"You're a brick, Mollie," said her brother. "I do believe Evelyn Forbes will be glad to see you. The most amazing thing about this affair is that none of the many friends Mr. and Mrs. Forbes and their daughter must possess in London has the slightest inkling of the truth. I suppose the servants are instructed to tell ordinary callers that the various members of the family are out, or some of them indisposed, or something of the sort.... But come along! I hear Bates banging my belongings into the passage. I'm in a fever to be there and taking part in the row."

Soon they were seated in a taxi and speeding to Smith's Hotel, Jermyn Street.

"Have you invited Miss Beale to reside with you while she is in London, Sis?" said Theydon, allowing his thoughts to dwell for a moment on the less tragic side of events.

"Yes. What else could I do? Poor thing, she was terrified at the notion of sleeping under the same roof as a Chinaman."

"I don't blame her. But there's a certain element of risk for you, Mollie--"

"Oh, bother! Don't tell me that a few Chinamen can threaten all London."

Yet even the valiant-hearted Mrs. Paxton yielded to the haunting terror of the bandits when the taxi drew in behind a gray car already standing at the curb outside Smith's Hotel, and her brother grasped her wrist in sudden warning.

"Sit still," he said. "Now we may get on the track of some of the gang.

That is the car which followed me on Monday night."

His sister, of course, did not understand. She had heard nothing of the pursuit and its curious sequel.

"Do you mean it is one of the cars which these men use?" she whispered breathlessly.

"Yes. I'll explain later. But what impudence! The scoundrels have not even changed the number plate."

Unquestionably, the number of the gray landaulet now within a few feet of them was XY 1314. Theydon stooped, opened a dressing case lying at his feet, and took out the automatic pistol placed there by Bates. He put it in the right-hand pocket of his coat.

"Now, I'll reconnoiter," he said, and opened the door. The taxi driver was already gazing curiously in at his fares, wondering why one or both did not alight.

"Be ready to start the instant I want you," said Theydon to the man, and he strolled past the gray car, with every sense alert, every muscle braced. If Wong Li Fu were seated inside he would cover him with the pistol and hold him there until the police came, or shoot him dead if he offered any resistance.

Fortunately, therefore, all things considered, the interior of the car was absolutely empty, save for a copy of the Times on the back seat.

Even the presence of the newspaper was significant. In that issue should have appeared Forbes's reply to "Y. M." which Furneaux had suppressed as unnecessary.

There was a chauffeur at the wheel--no Chinaman, but a tightly-buttoned and black-legginged young Englishman--in fact, the real thing in chauffeurs.

"Whose car is this?" demanded Theydon.

"It belongs to the Chinese Embassy, sir," said the man, answering civilly enough, but not unnaturally showing some surprise at the curt question.

"Are you waiting here for some official of the Embassy?" went on Theydon.

"Not exactly, sir, some friends of His Excellency." The man glanced toward the door of the hotel. "Here they are now," he added.

Theydon turned. Two Chinamen, sedate, pig-tailed persons, were descending the steps. With them was Furneaux! One of the Orientals gave Theydon a rather sharp glance, having noticed, apparently, that he was conversing with the chauffeur, but Furneaux, after a stonily indifferent stare, said to the second Chinaman, in plain English:

"Do you mind dropping me at Scotland Yard?"

"With pleasure," was the composed reply.

The three entered, and the gray car made off, leaving Theydon to gaze blankly after it. His sister, though badly scared at first, quickly recovered her self-possession. She even made a joke of the incident.

"As an anti-climax, Frank, that is the best thing of its kind you have ever brought off," she tittered.

CHAPTER XV

FORCEFUL TACTICS

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 perfectly harmless citizens of the Middle Kingdom, and, being one of those happy beings more readily swayed to laughter than to tears, rallied him upon an apparent blunder.

"Never before have I discovered a neurotic streak in you, Frank," she said, after she had obtained a couple of letters for Miss Beale, and they were en route again. "Come now, confess. If Evelyn Forbes--or, let me see, is it Phyllis or Doris? No, Evelyn. If Evelyn Forbes, then, did not happen to be a remarkably pretty girl, would you really attach such terrific importance to the mad goings-on of a set of Chinese fanatics? I doubt it."

The cab was threading its way through the traffic of St. James Street and Piccadilly on a busy afternoon in the season, and Theydon had much to tell her before they arrived at Fortescue Square, but he sat by her side in silence for a little while.

"Frank," said his sister, at last, "it is not like you to seek refuge in silence. I'm sorry if my chaff annoyed you. Don't forget that you know everything about this mysterious business, and I know very little."

Her sympathetic voice roused him from the stupor which had benumbed his senses.

"I allowed imagination to run away with me, Sis," he said gently. "It was thoughtless on my part. Please forgive me. I suppose those two Chinamen are unofficially connected with the Embassy. At any rate, the man with them, the little man in a blue serge suit and straw hat, is Furneaux of Scotland Yard, a pocket marvel among detectives, the sort of criminal-hunter you read about in Gaboriau, but can scarcely accept as existing in real life."

From that instant he bent his wits to the task of acquainting Mrs.