But the water had risen almost to the top of the tank before he was able to grasp its brim and draw himself out.

Once on the roof, there was only one thought in his mind. It was nearing eight o'clock, and if Eva kept the appointment at the inventor's he knew his adversaries well enough to be sure that they would take advantage of his absence.

He dashed down the stairs and out of the building. Dora and her evil band could wait. He must reach the inventor's shop. As the seconds sped, so increased his premonition that all would not be well there.

It was at the moment that Zita came flying down-stairs that Locke burst into the hallway to the inventor's.

Zita saw him. Above, she knew was the terrible Automaton and his bloodthirsty emissary. More horrible yet, she had her fears of the package that had been given her by Balcom to deliver.

"You must not go up there!" she cried, impulsively, flinging her arms about Locke's neck.

Locke tried to remove her arms as he questioned her. But Zita either would not or could not tell more. Instead she merely clung to him.

Thus it was that Eva, determined at keeping her appointment with the inventor at all costs, entered the hallway at just this unpropitious moment. To her it looked as if Locke and Zita were very familiar. Could it be that Quentin was such a cad? She could not deny the evidence of her eyes.

Indignantly she brushed past them and rushed up the stairs. Locke called after her, but she refused to heed him. He flung off the arms of Zita and dashed after her. But Eva was too quick for him. She opened the door to the inventor's and went in, slamming it behind her. The lock snapped.

In an instant Eva saw what she had fled into. There was the Automaton, near him the emissary with the knife--and on the floor their victim in a pool of blood. She shrieked and tried to escape. But the lock had snapped. Besides, the emissary, now directed by the monster, blocked her retreat.

Outside, Locke pounded on the door, but could not open it. It was of stout oak and would take some moments to break down.

The emissary circled in one direction. Eva turned, and there was the Automaton advancing on her from the other side of the room.

On the table the clock-work bomb, delivered by Zita, whether with full knowledge or not, ticked out the last few seconds before its timing at precisely eight!

CHAPTER XIV

Eva flattened herself against the door at her back. She could feel and hear Locke pounding on the other side. She thought that she would die of sheer terror.

The Automaton raised his mighty fist, and Eva instinctively ducked under the monster's arm. There was an inner room. Could she reach it in time?

Would the door be unlocked? At most she could only try.

The emissary tried to catch her, but she proved too quick for him. She reached the door. It opened, and she flew into the room, slamming and bolting it behind her.

Now she could hear the thunderous blows of the Automaton raining against the door. One huge fist of the monster crashed through the panel. Eva crouched down in a far corner and closed her eyes. At that instant the time bomb exploded and the house was rocked to its foundations.

Everything was demolished. One entire side of the house was blown out.

The door leading to the workshop which a moment before Locke had been vainly striving to open crashed full upon him and felled him, half-stunned, to the floor.

The force of the explosion had dazed Eva. As for the Automaton and the emissary, they had both been blown through a gaping aperture in the wall to land in the garden beneath. Only Zita, in the lower hallway, was totally untouched by the catastrophe.

Locke, dazed, crawled from under the door and made his way into the demolished room in search of Eva, a cold fear gripping his heart. How could any living thing have lived after such an occurrence? But in another instant he saw her, as she half swooned and staggered into the room.

"Quentin!" she gasped.

He caught her in his arms. But the next moment she remembered what she had witnessed in the hallway below and she drew herself away from him.

"Go to the girl you really love," she scorned.

"The girl--I really love?" repeated Locke; then there ran through his mind what had happened, as though it had been ages ago.

He protested and tried to explain. But protestations and explanations only made matters worse, as usual. Had she not with her own eyes seen Locke in Zita's arms?

"Eva," he persisted, manlike, "I swear that she was only trying to save my life. I cannot help it if she--"

Locke saw that his defense was only making an innocent matter worse, and checked himself. His mind recalled that some one had once said that a jealous woman believes a man guilty until he proves himself innocent; when he has proved himself innocent she merely still suspects. Eva's manner was very constrained.

At that moment a policeman, followed by Zita, entered, and Zita, running up to Locke, cried, anxiously, "You're not hurt--are you?"

Locke answered in an annoyed negative.

The policeman now questioned them very closely and examined the dead inventor's body. Then he entered their names and addresses in his note-book.

Next the officer lead the entire group down to the garden. There the horribly injured emissary was trying miserably to crawl away.

The Automaton had totally disappeared.

Eva immediately ordered that the injured man be taken to Brent Rock in her car. Then she turned sharply to Zita.

"How did you come to be here?" she demanded.

Zita was startled and confused. It lasted only a minute. Then, her mind made up, she replied, defiantly:

"I came here to discover the secret of my birth. I have been told that I am Mr. Brent's daughter."

Eva was stricken dumb with astonishment at this startling claim, but Locke laughed outright.

"What nonsense!" he scoffed. "Eva, don't listen to it."

Zita glared at him and with a haughty nod to Eva swept out of the garden.

Eva was still frightfully indignant with Locke and insisted on going home alone. However, they arrived at Brent Rock at about the same time.

The emissary had been placed on a lounge in the library and a doctor was called. The case was quite hopeless and they merely hoped to obtain a confession before he passed away.

When Eva arrived she went directly to her father's room, but, as he was receiving every attention from a trained nurse and she could do nothing further to aid him, she returned to the library.

Locke, too, after changing his clothes, still wet from the water-tank on the top of the apartment, also went to the library.

At his entrance the doctor glanced at him in a manner to indicate that there was no hope of saving the man's life. Locke went over to examine him. He was struck by the sly rascality of the professional criminal, but he thought little of it at the time. He tried to question the emissary, but, except for a labored breathing, could extract no response.

There were voices in the hallway. For a moment the dying man showed some signs of returning consciousness. A crafty look came over his face. What was he contemplating?

The door opened and Balcom and his son Paul entered. Balcom walked jauntily, but with a suavity of manner that was always his. Paul looked at his best, except for the fact that he carried his left arm in a silken sling.

Balcom greeted them all, and at his voice the dying man actually showed a sort of agitation. A strong shudder seemed to pass through his body, then, like a spring suddenly uncoiled, he sat up.