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284 than the despair of the Prussian, apprehending what that one could not yet guess, that once more, and now certainly for the last time, vengeance was denied him, the fulfilment of all his labours and their sole purpose snatched from his grasp.

The instincts of a killer were not his. Barring injudicious attempt to summon aid or take the offensive, Ekstrom was safe from injury at the hands of Michael Lanyard. His cunning, his favour in the countenance of fortune, or whatever it was that had enabled him to make the girl his prisoner and bring her here, bade fair to prove his salvation.

Deep in Lanyard's consciousness an echo stirred of half-forgotten words: "Vengeance is mine. …"

The sense of frustration brewed a hopelessness as stark as that of a brow-beaten child. A blackness seemed to be settling down upon his faculties. A mist wavered momentarily before his eyes. He gulped convulsively, swallowing what had almost been a sob.

But he spoke in a voice positively dispassionate.

"Keep your hands up."

Lanyard removed and pocketed the key, crossed to the middle of the room without once letting his gaze waver from the face of the Prussian, passed behind him, planted the muzzle of the pistol beneath Ekstrom's shoulder-blade, and methodically searched him, finding and putting aside on the desk one automatic, nothing else.

"Stand aside!"

The almost puerile measure of his disappointment was betrayed in the thrust with which he shouldered Ekstrom