"Now you suffer!" he said, as he flung her in a chair. "You shall suffer, I tell you! I will make an example of you. I will leave your husband something which he will not touch!"

He was shaking in every limb. He dashed to the door and bellowed "Bridgers!"

Presently she heard a footstep in the hall.

"Come, my friend," van Heerden shouted, "you shall have your wish. It is----"

"How are you going, van Heerden? Quietly or rough?"

He spun round. There were two men in the doorway, and the first of these was Beale.

"It's no use your shouting for Bridgers because Bridgers is on the way to the jug," said McNorton. "I have a warrant for you, van Heerden."

The doctor turned with a howl of rage, snatched up the pistol which lay on the table, and thumbed down the safety-catch.

Beale and McNorton fired together, so that it seemed like a single shot that thundered through the room. Van Heerden slid forward, and fell sprawling across the table.

It was the Friday morning, and Beale stepped briskly through the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton, and declining the elevator went up the stairs two at a time. He burst into the room where Kitson and the girl were standing by the window.

"Wheat prices are tumbling down," he said, "the message worked."

"Thank Heaven for that!" said Kitson. "Then van Heerden's code message telling his gang to stop operations reached its destination!"

"Its destinations," corrected Beale cheerfully. "I released thirty pigeons with the magic word. The agents have been arrested," he said; "we notified the Government authorities, and there was a sheriff or a policeman in every post office when the code word came through--van Heerden's agents saw some curious telegraph messengers yesterday."

Kitson nodded and turned away.

"What are you going to do now?" asked the girl, with a light in her eyes. "You must feel quite lost without this great quest of yours."

"There are others," said Stanford Beale.

"When do you return to America?" she asked.

He fenced the question, but she brought him back to it.

"I have a great deal of business to do in London before I go," he said.

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well," he hesitated, "I have some legal business."

"Are you suing somebody?" she asked, wilfully dense.

He rubbed his head in perplexity.

"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't exactly know what I've got to do or what sort of figure I shall cut. I have never been in the Divorce Court before."

"Divorce Court?" she said, puzzled, "are you giving evidence? Of course I know detectives do that sort of thing. I have read about it in the newspapers. It must be rather horrid, but you are such a clever detective--oh, by the way you never told me how you found me."

"It was a very simple matter," he said, relieved to change the subject, "van Heerden, by one of those curious lapses which the best of criminals make, left a message at the pawnbroker's which was written on the back of an account for pigeon food, sent to him from a Horsham tradesman. I knew he would not try to dispatch his message by the ordinary courses and I suspected all along that he had established a pigeon-post. The bill gave me all the information I wanted. It took us a long time to find the tradesman, but once we had discovered him he directed us to the farm. We took along a couple of local policemen and arrested Bridgers in the garage."

She shivered.

"It was horrible, wasn't it?" she said.

He nodded.

"It was rather dreadful, but it might have been very much worse," he added philosophically.

"But how wonderful of you to switch yourself from the crime of that enthralling character to a commonplace divorce suit."

"This isn't commonplace," he said, "it is rather a curious story."

"Do tell me." She made a place for him on the window-ledge and he sat down beside her.

"It is a story of a mistake and a blunder," he said. "The plaintiff, a very worthy young man, passably good looking, was a man of my profession, a detective engaged in protecting the interests of a young and beautiful girl."

"I suppose you have to say she's young and beautiful or the story wouldn't be interesting," she said.

"It is not necessary to lie in this case," he said, "she is certainly young and undoubtedly beautiful. She has the loveliest eyes----"

"Go on," she said hastily.

"The detective," he resumed, "hereinafter called the petitioner, desiring to protect the innocent maiden from the machinations of a fortune-hunting gentleman no longer with us, contracted as he thought a fraudulent marriage with this unfortunate girl, believing thereby he could choke off the villain who was pursuing her."

"But why did the unfortunate girl marry him, even fraudulently?"

"Because," said Beale, "the villain of the piece had drugged her and she didn't know what she was doing. After the marriage," he went on, "he discovered that so far from being illegal it was good in law and he had bound this wretched female."

"Please don't be rude," she said.

"He had bound this wretched female to him for life. Being a perfect gentleman, born of poor but American parents, he takes the first opportunity of freeing her."

"And himself," she murmured.

"As to the poor misguided lad," he said firmly, "you need feel no sympathy. He had behaved disgracefully."

"How?" she asked.

"Well, you see, he had already fallen in love with her and that made his offence all the greater. If you go red I cannot tell you this story, because it embarrasses me."

"I haven't gone red," she denied indignantly. "So what are you--what is he going to do?"

Beale shrugged his shoulders.

"He is going to work for a divorce."