"You said Wong Li Fu knew that Mrs. Forbes had been rescued from her bonds last night," went on Theydon. "I suppose Winter told you that. Was he only assuming the fact, or have there been developments at Croydon?"

"A motor car drove up to the gate openly at ten o'clock this morning. A police sergeant, jumping to the conclusion that one of his own chiefs or a representative of Scotland Yard was paying the place a visit, incautiously showed himself in the doorway, whereupon the car raced away. It was an unfortunate and, perhaps, costly blunder, but the man is hardly to be blamed. The very audacity of the gang is their best safeguard."

A luncheon gong clanged in the hall. Both men started, and then laughed.

"You see," cried Forbes. "These rascals have got us on the jump. I don't know how long my servants will stand the racket. They are most loyal, and Tomlinson vows that not a syllable has been breathed outside by any of our domestics. But the women's nerves are on edge. A scullery maid dropped a decanter a little while since, and the crash drew bloodcurdling shrieks from the kitchen. Come, let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. The quotation is not a felicitous one.

Indeed, it is distinctly ominous, but it seems to meet the conditions."

He threw open the door, and saw the three ladies descending the stairs.

"Helena," he cried sternly, "the doctor said you were not to stir out of your room."

"My dear, the doctor is a mere man, and fancies that a woman is not fitted for warfare. He is quite mistaken. When aroused we can be terrible."

Mrs. Forbes, whose face was paler and eyes seemingly bigger and more luminous than usual, was leaning on Evelyn's arm. She was dressed in a blue tulle costume which lent a fragile air to an already slender form, but she smiled so unaffectedly that even the policeman grinned.

"You certainly look ferocious," said her husband, yielding instantly, as she well knew would happen.

"I believe you are all jealous," she vowed. "I am the only one who has really been in the forefront of the battle. No. I forgot you, Mr.

Theydon. Didn't that horrid man knock you down?"

"Yes," said Theydon, moistening his lips with his tongue. There was such a peculiar rasp in his voice that it evoked a general laugh.

Obviously the guests meant to avoid serious topics during the meal.

Evelyn Forbes chimed in with a reminiscence of her schooldays in Brussels, and soon the talk was general, ranging from the year's Academy to the Ladies' Gold Championship.

Mrs. Paxton, an excellent mimic, was amusing them with imitations of the voice and manner of a certain well-known lady golfer, when she was interrupted by three sharp, irregular cracks which seemed to come from the dining-room windows. Simultaneously a picture frame on the opposite wall was split and a Worcester vase on a sideboard was smashed to atoms.

Theydon, owing to his position at the table, was the first to notice three small, starred holes in the plate glass of the windows.

"Don't stand up!" he said, instantly. "Some one is shooting at the house. Crouch on the floor, for Heaven's sake!"

That urgent appeal was emphasized by a fourth bullet, which, taking a lower flight, barely missed Forbes, upset a Venetian glass flower vase on the table, and buried itself in the lower half of the sideboard.

Forbes, heedless of the possible consequences to himself, sprang to his wife's assistance, and, interposing his body as a shield between her and the windows, led her to an angle of the wall where she would be safe.

The younger women, after a momentary hesitation, dropped to the floor and crawled to the same refuge. Theydon ran out. The front door was open.

The police had heard the shooting, the sound of which had been deadened to those in the dining room by the breaking glass and china. But within a few minutes a useless pursuit was abandoned. The fusillade had come from a car which halted close to the garden railings on the far side of the square. Though the trees were nearly in full leaf, and dense shrubberies seemed to shut off every house from any such method of attack, investigation proved that it was possible to estimate accurately the position of the dining-room windows in No. 11.

When Theydon returned he found Forbes and the ladies gathered in the hall.

"Another narrow escape on both sides," he said coolly. "Two policemen were just too late to interfere. Of course, they did not anticipate a move in that quarter."

"Have the--er--enemy made off in a car?" said Mrs. Forbes.

"Yes. A constable in a taxi is trying to follow them."

"Well, then, let us finish our luncheon. I had hardly touched my cutlet."

"By Jove, Helena, that doctor of ours was decidedly in error," cried her husband. "You're right. If we're besieged we must carry ourselves according to the code. Mrs. Paxton, I hope it won't disturb you if a shell bursts before coffee is served!"

Theydon glanced through a window before resuming his seat.

"That volley has done things!" he announced. "London is stirring at last. There's a crowd in front of the house, and a short, fat man is explaining the procedure. Prepare now to receive the press in battalions."

CHAPTER XVI

WHEREIN UNEXPECTED ALLIES APPEAR

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 available, it was a debatable point whether or not the inmates of No. 11 Fortescue Square were saved from an almost maniacal vengeance by the fact that a crisis was precipitated. Winter maintained stoutly that the police must triumph in the long run, whereas Furneaux held, with even greater tenacity, that although the gang would undoubtedly be broken up, that much-desired end might have been attained after, and not before, a dire tragedy occurred in the Forbes household.

The pros and cons of the argument were equally numerous and weighty.

They cannot be marshaled here. Each man and woman who reads this record will probably form an emphatic opinion tending toward the one side or the other. All that a veracious chronicler can accomplish is to set forth a plain tale of events in their proper sequence, and leave the ultimate verdict to individual judgment.

Winter was a hard-headed, broad-minded official, whose long and wide experience enabled him to estimate at their true value the far-reaching powers of the State as opposed to the machinations of a few determined outlaws. On the other hand, the amazing facility with which Furneaux could enter into the twists and turns of the criminal mind entitles his matured views to much respect.

At any rate, this is what happened.

Winter was sitting in his office, smoking a fat cigar, and wading through reports brought in by subordinates concerning every opium den and Chinese boarding house in the East End, when Furneaux entered.

"Any luck?" inquired the chief, laying aside one document which seemed to merit fuller inquiry; it described a club much frequented by Chinese residents in London, men of a higher class than the sailors and firemen brought to the port by ships trading with the Far East, and an outstanding feature of the Young Manchus' operations was the intelligent grasp of the ways and means of modern civilized life these filibusters exhibited.

"So-so," squeaked Furneaux.

He flung himself into a big armchair, curled up in it like an animated Buddha, and extracted one of the three ivory skulls from a waistcoat pocket.

"If you could only speak, you image of evil!" he muttered. "You're not so dead that you cannot work mischief. Why the deuce, then, can't you mouth your incantations? Then we would listen and learn."

Winter, still sorting his papers, cocked the cigar inquisitively on one side of his mouth.

"Oh, I have ascertained a lot about the inner politics of China,"

mumbled Furneaux, irritably, gazing fixedly at the skull after one quick glance of his colleague. "Every little helps, of course. I have met some Chinamen this morning who would cheerfully plunge Wong Li Fu into a cauldron of boiling oil, and stir him round with a long stick when he was in it. One man, quite an important personage in the jute line, has lost a brother and a brother-in-law, the one in Canton, the other in Pekin, and he lays both deaths at the door of the redoubtable Wong.

Another, the fellow who chanced to take up his quarters at Smith's Hotel, is a delegate sent here specially to hunt out Wong, and destroy him. I asked him how he meant to set about it, but his scheme is vague.

He's an opportunist of the first water. 'Me catchee and killee Wong Li Fu one time,' was his best effort. I'm going to confront Len Shi with these two in Bow Street. They may worm something out of him. But will they own up if they do? Dashed if I know. The Oriental mind is on a par with their blessed language. It has three thousand ways of expressing one idea, and not one of 'em is our way."

"Has Theydon gone to Fortescue Square?"

"I suppose so. He turned up in Jermyn Street--outside Smith's Hotel, if you please, with a lady in a taxi."

"A lady? Miss Beale?"

"No, his sister, judging from the family likeness. His eyes grew goggled like yours when he saw the gray car."