The Barking Dogs

R. STOPFORD, senior surgeon of the Atlantic flyer Ruritania, stared aimlessly at the small rimless monocle which he held between finger and thumb. His tall, slim figure showed silhouetted against the window. Outside dusk was falling.

“Look here, Roscoe,” said he, “owin' to my quixotic interest in your blameless young life, I've missed my ship, been shot at by some bloke who controls somethin' vaguely called the Zones, and now find myself incarcerated in an astonishin' mansion belongin' to an amiable millionaire. I gather that our Zone pals are congregatin' in the dark. I assume that one couldn't throw a stone from any window without hittin' a couple of Zones! Splendid! But what are we doin' here, and what are we goin' to get out of it?”

The man addressed, a dim shadow over by the closed door, did not immediately answer. Stopford set the monocle in place before one blue eye, where it instantly and miraculously became attached.

“Here's the answer, old lad,” came the reply. “The house of Page Sutton, in which we are, is at present the focus of all the forces of Head Center—of all the Zones.”

“Cheery-O!”

Roscoe advanced into the failing light which struggled through the window. Three inches shorter than Stopford, but sturdy and agile as an acrobat, his wide-open gray eyes were set unfalteringly upon the face of his friend. When Commander Drake Roscoe smiled his tanned features looked like those of a healthy schoolboy. But he was not smiling. “This conference must be a short one,” he went on. “I've snatched the chance because I want you to know all I know—”

“Splendid fellow!”

“Page Sutton has been a victim of the Zone group for years. He has been one of their many sources of income. They have lost their hold on him. He's stopped payments, and they've tried intimidation. He's countered through Ned Regan, and now has locked in his safe upstairs something which cost him twenty thousand dollars but which, if genuine, is worth ten times the price. That's why we're here.”

“Absolutely,” Stopford murmured. “Painfully, distressin'ly obvious. But I rather gather, old scout, that that's also why they are here—I mean the blokes who've tried to shoot Page Sutton. Flocks of wolf dogs will shortly be loose on this pleasant property. There are prisonlike shutters to all windows; a depressin' atmosphere—”

“Stoppy,” Roscoe interrupted, “we're in for a wild night! I'm sorry, because there are women in the house—”

“Particularly Molly O'Hay.”

“Maybe! But there are others!”

Stopford groaned.

“Extraordinary thing, Madame Czerna's turnin' up here,” he muttered. “Certainly the car broke down, but why outside this blighted house? And why tonight?”

“There's just time to tell ?ou something else,” Roscoe went on quickly. “Sutton's daughter, June, was the victim of a queer attempt some few nights back.”

“June Sutton! What's she got to do with it?”

“I don't know. But shut up. Listen. She was in the first place wakened by the dogs, then they became silent. Next she detected a faint sound that seemed to come from under the pillow. Finally something—she doesn't know what—ran across the bed....”

“You're alarmin' me.”

“It alarmed her! She bolted out and along to the housekeeper, Mrs. Dean. They came back together.”

“Find anything?”

“Not anything living. Of course the window was wide open. But under the pillow they found a small wooden reel, of the sort used for silk or cotton, fixed there by a piece of twisted wire!”

Stopford stared vaguely into the darkness masking the speaker.

“Not a glimmer,” he declared. “Means precisely nothin' to me.”

“No,” Roscoe murmured. “I admit it's obscure. But it may turn out to mean a devil of a lot to me.”

N a room far distant from the Page Sutton country home, high in the center of New York, a dark room, its darkness masking the presence of a more formidable creature than the United States had hitherto entertained, a red light glowed.

“H. Q.,” said a voice. “Report of Zone Officer 2A. Commander Roscoe has been allotted a room at the rear of the Page Sutton home. Zone Officer 2A requested Page Sutton to arrange an exchange, as the barking of dogs always disturbs her. Transfer is being made. Roscoe will now face the lawn. Timed 10 o'clock. Report ends.”

“Report of Group Master inside the Sutton home.”

“Report to hand. He experiences great difficulty in making his reports owing to the activity of Christopoulos, Greek butler, and of Ned W. Regan. Directly Mrs. Dean, housekeeper, has rearranged the room facing Sound to be occupied by Commander Roscoe group master will make the connection. The delay is dangerous, as, once the dogs are out, making of connection becomes impossible. Report ends.”

“Report of sector captain covering the house.”

“Report to hand. Everything is in readiness. Standing by for instructions. Report ends.”

There was an interval of fully a minute; then:

“Take charge of H. Q.,” came the order. “File all reports. Advise garage controller I shall leave by Exit 7 in five minutes.”

The red light went out.

E'RE in a state of siege,” said Page Sutton. His habitually fresh-colored face was pale. “This house is surrounded, and there are spies inside. What they want is in that safe!” He pointed. “It's a map of the New York City Zones!”

Drake Roscoe, composed, but his gray eyes very bright, stared at the speaker across the big cozy study.

“You may be right, Sutton,” said he. “You may be wrong. The gates are locked; the doors are barred; in a few minutes the dogs will be loose in the grounds. We want to be sure of the people inside. You agree, Regan?”

Ned W. Regan heaved himself out of a long rest chair. His apparently slothful bulk had deceived many a man to his cost who had looked to find in America's most famous private detective something more obviously alert.

“Whoever's inside from the other camp,” said he, “doesn't get out! Because tonight we're going through this household with a fine-tooth comb! First let's have a view of your twenty-thousand-dollar map!”

“One moment,” Drake Roscoe interrupted. “I have my own ideas about the map, and I have my own ideas about how this job should be conducted. There's one of your guests suspected, Sutton: Madame Czerna—”

“Phew!”

Dr. Stopford was the interrupter. Standing up, he began to pace the car pet, busily burnishing his monocle as he walked. Roscoe looked at him hard.

“The lady is a particular friend of yours, Stoppy, I know,” he went on. “But you can't deny that she had something to do with your missing your ship?”

Stopford shrugged but didn't speak. When the senior surgeon of the R. M. S. Ruritania misses his ship a new senior surgeon is liable to be appointed at Liverpool.

“Very well,” said Roscoe. “She came uninvited. She has now effected a change of rooms. The result is that I am located at the front of the house instead of at the back. This gives me an idea which may lead to the discovery of the spy among your domestic staff, Sutton. Which of your servants ordinarily has access to the bedrooms?”

Page Sutton considered the question for a moment.

“Mrs. Dean, my housekeeper,” he replied slowly, “two maids and of course the butler on occasions.”

“The butler being Bach, an agent of Regan's,” Roscoe replied, “we can leave him out. No other manservant?”

Page Sutton shook his head.

“No—except Armitage, my own man. He's in and out of my quarters, of course, but he has no actual business in any other bedroom.”

“Ah!” Roscoe muttered. “How long has Armitage been with you?”

“Nearly a year. He's right as right. Shall I send for him?”

“On no account.”

“Eh!” Regan grunted.

“I have reasons for wishing,” Roscoe declared, “that no one in this house should be hampered in any way tonight!”

“Good Lord!” Stopford exclaimed. “Why not serve 'em out with bombs!”

LL three men stared in amazement at the commander. But he merely smiled.

“I'm gradually learning my job,” he explained. “It's no good trying to tackle the Zone gang on the principle of a bull at a gate. And now, Sutton—the map.”

Amid complete silence Page Sutton unlocked the safe. Taking out a flat leather case, he unlocked this in turn. All bent over the table eagerly as a strange map of New York City was spread flat under the lamp.

“It cost twenty thousand dollars,” said their host, “and maybe the life of the man who sold it to me. But it's worth more.”

No one spoke. All were studying this extraordinary map—over which had been drawn a series of circles, centering on a district a little north of Wall Street. The outermost circle touched the Bronx. The bottom of this circle was not shown on the map. It presumably covered a considerable area of the Atlantic. The belts or zones were variously colored and gave the thing a most peculiar appearance. These zones were divided up into oddly shaped sectors, and each sector bore a number.

“It shouldn't be a difficult matter,” said Drake Roscoe, “to trace this point.” He rested a pencil on the center of the zones. “That's where the spider lives—in the heart of the web.”

“It all turns on two things,” Regan rejoined. “First, is the map genuine in construction? Second, not so important as the first, is it centered right?”

“You are suggesting,” said Page Sutton, “that it's a fake?”

“It certainly might be,” Roscoe admitted soberly; while Stopford, using his monocle as a magnifying glass, bent over it, peering curiously.

“If it were authentic," Roscoe went on, “with the powers at our command it would be merely a question of time to round up the entire Zone organization! You will note, Sutton, that according to this map you are in a sector marked X, and in what I take to be the Third Zone.”

“I've noted it!” Sutton returned grimly.

“But what I can't cope with,” Stopford declared, “is all the sea which comes into this thing. It leaves out such a lot of New York and takes in so much bally ocean. Hullo!”

Abruptly he ceased.

There came a wild snarling from the grounds below; a concerted savage chorus—the song of a wolf pack.

“Dogs are out!” said Roscoe.

Even as he spoke a more dreadful sound rose, eerie, on the night ... the sobbing shriek of a man at grips with death!

Stopford sprang and threw open a window.

The snarling became concentrated, horribly, eloquently muffled. A second wild shriek rose and died away. There was the sound of a shot ... a savage howl ... renewed snarling and worrying.

Somewhere a woman screamed.

Sutton and Regan started for the door.

“Lock the map in the safe,” commanded Roscoe.

Sutton turned back and obeyed. He was deadly pale. His hands shook. Stopford was craning from the opened window.

“Some poor devil was out there,” he said in a hushed voice, and turned. “It's too late, I think, but for God's sake call the dogs off....”

Downstairs, in the big square room known as the Persian lobby because of its decoration scheme, the other members of the household were panic-stricken.

Stopford reached the stair foot first, Regan close behind him. Roscoe and Page Sutton could be seen above, running along the oaken gallery with its drapings of rare carpets. Dr. Cross, June Sutton's friend, was standing by a phonograph, a disk in his hand. He had clearly been interrupted in the act of placing it on the instrument.

Heavy draperies concealed the windows and the massive shutters which protected them inside. The big double doors opening on the lawn were also draped.

Her back to these draperies, as if, even at such a moment, she could find composure to realize that they formed an ideal setting for her gemlike beauty, Madame Czerna stood, looking toward the stair.

Slender, alluring, daringly but exquisitely gowned, the unbidden guest faced Stopford. Under the multicolored lights of a Persian mosque lamp her short, coppery hair glowed fierily. She was of the type which excites controversy. Seen as she appeared now, few would have denied that she was lovely.

N a deep recess below the newel post June Sutton shrank, fearful. It was she whose cry had been heard in the study above. Molly O'Hay, her arm thrown protectingly about her friend, looked up, a challenge in her widely opened eyes. If the occasion had been less tragic one might have admitted the picture of the two girls, artlessly posed in a group of appealing beauty, both alarmed, but the Irish rose showing all her thorns in defense of the more delicate lily.

Stopford raced for the door. An observer must have noted a subtle change in the debonair ship's doctor. His monocle retained its place, but the fatuous good humor had fled in favor of a cold determination.

Madame Czerna barred his way with outstretched arms.

“You must not go out there!” she said, her French accent intensified by her passionate sincerity. “Those beasts will tear you to pieces!”

He checked. There was a swift exchange of glances. And—whatever or whoever Madame Czerna might be—Stopford knew a hot, wild gladness because of what he read in those beautiful, frightened eyes.

Regan came up with him.

“Open that door—quick!” he said.

“Stop!”

Page Sutton, pale but composed, was the speaker. June struggled to her feet and ran to her father.

“Don't go out there!” she pleaded. “Please don't let anybody go out!”

Molly drifted, naturally, to Roscoe. “Someone must call the dogs off,” she whispered—“someone they're used to.”

“Myself, miss,” said a calm voice.

OLLY turned. Christopoulos, Page Sutton's Greek butler, stood at her elbow. Regan, thrusting past Madame Czerna, had drawn the heavy curtains aside and was tugging at the door bolts, when:

“One moment, sir!” Christopoulos cried.

Regan paused and looked around. Bach, his most trusted agent, posing as a butler for the protection of Page Sutton, almost took the master sleuth off his guard in presence of all the guests.

“Well, Ba—” He checked himself in time. “Well, by all that's holy, what have you got to say?”

“This, sir: the dogs are used to me. For anyone—anyone—to go among them, now, would mean to be torn to pieces. They are used to my whistle. I will go out by another door and try to call them off. If I succeed, I will lock them in the yard. Then we can venture into the shrubbery.”

“Going alone?” Regan growled.

“It would be better, sir.”

There was a moment of magnetic silence.

“You're right,” said Roscoe. “But I'll come too and stand by with a gun! Those dogs have smelled blood!”

Molly O'Hay met his glance for a moment. Then the commander and the butler-detective turned and went out by a door on the left of the stair. Regan grunted, glanced at Madame Czerna and Stopford, and then went out after them.

“Everybody must try to be calm,” said Stopford. “We shall want lights, so will someone who knows the house please find them?” He turned to Page Sutton. “It might be as well, sir, if we were all armed.”

“Good,” his host returned. The doctor's calm manner had acted as a sedative. “I should be obliged if the ladies would go upstairs to the music-room. Cross, you know where the firearms are kept. Take this key and bring us four pistols and a packet of shells. Armitage will be here any minute and can join us.”

Dr. Cross took the key and went racing upstairs.

“Go along, June, my love,” Sutton continued, his arm around his daughter's shoulders. “Lead the way. It will all turn out right enough.”

June and Molly started up the stair. The latter turned:

“Come on, dear!” she called.

Madame Czerna, very slowly, followed.

N a tree-shadowed hollow a Rolls, all lights out, was drawn up. A man sat at the wheel, his hat so shading his features that, had the lamps been lighted, it must have been difficult to identify him. His fingers rested upon an instrument not usually included in the equipment of even so luxurious an automobile as this.

“''Tick—Tick! Ticker—Ticker—Tick—Tick!''” he telegraphed.

And presently came the Morse message:

“Division A. A cordon of police being formed around the Zones operating. Stop. Impossible clear Zones. Stop. Advise dispersal units concentrated. Stop. Fear we are outmaneuvered. Stop. Report ends.”

Immediately the instrument in the car replied:

“Disperse all firing groups. Stop. Disperse all B reinforcements. Stop. Instruct group master charge motor boat stand by. Stop. Instruct group master charge waterplane stand by. Stop. Disconnect.”

Followed some moments of silence. Then the instrument repeated its call:

“''Tick—Tick! Ticker—Ticker—Tick—Tick!''”

At last, the answer came:

“Zone 2A.”

“Your report.”

“Roscoe allotted room facing Sound. Stop. Dogs have attacked, perhaps killed, someone in grounds. Stop. Search party setting out. Stop. Awaiting orders in room. Report ends.”

Instantly:

“Proceed Roscoe's room,” ticked the order. “Lift pillow. Return at once and report if reel of silk there and if silk extends through window. Stop. Test if tight or loose. Stop. Don't disturb. Stop. Hurry. Stop. Hold the connection! Move.”

The silence which followed was broken by a sound of running footsteps. They ceased somewhere on the lip of the hollow. There was a muffled colloquy. Then a figure appeared beside the car.

“Well,” said a musical voice—that of the man at the driving wheel.

“Report of Sector Captain 3A 3 covering Page Sutton home. Group Master 4, Sector 3A 3, inside the Sutton home, was attacked by the dogs while adjusting connection. He used his pistol. The house is alarmed. Group master believed to be dead.”

“Had he made the connection?”

“According to outside report—yes.”

“Stand by for instructions.”

The figure disappeared into the darkness. The instrument in the car began to tick out a message:

“Zone 2A. Reel is there. Stop. Silk stretched tightly. Stop. Cannot stay in room longer. Report ends.”

“Stand by from midnight. Disconnect.”

Silence fell in the hollow where the lonely, darkened Rolls lay hidden.

OU'RE taking risks!” growled Ned Regan.

“I'm used to 'em!” was Roscoe's reply. “We're all in dinner kit, and I'm wearing a soft-brimmed hat.”

Remote, behind the house, uprose the mingled protests of the wolf hounds, kenneled by the daring cunning of Bach. He had rejoined them at this very moment. His left hand was swathed in bandages.

The party of seven—for Wilson, the chauffeur, had reënforced it—poured out on to the lawn. Molly O'Hay watched from the balcony. Particularly she was watching Roscoe.

“Spread out!” said he. “There may be shooting.”

They fanned out; then converged on the shrubbery. The night was still as a desert. Once under cover, they came together by the spot where the victim of the dogs lay. Stopford actually found him first.

A ray from an electric torch told the truth.

“Good God!” whispered Page Sutton. “Armitage!”

“Lights out,” snapped Roscoe.

Five minutes later a ghastly thing lay under a sheet in the long, low outbuilding which formed a sort of bastard wing to the Page Sutton home. Ignoring protests, Roscoe searched the body. He seemed to be dissatisfied.

“All in again,” he directed tersely. “Then loose the dogs. Can you risk it, Bach?”

“Sure,” was the confident reply.

Back in the house Roscoe headed straight for the room which had been occupied by the dead man. Among Armitage's scanty possessions he found what he had looked for. Stopford was at his elbow. Roscoe held up his find.

“We know what the badge of a 'Zone Officer' looks like,” he said. “I have one in my collection. This, I take it, is the badge of a lesser official. But we're sure, now, that Armitage belonged to the Zones.”

The thing was attached to a safety clasp, by which it might be fixed to the owner's garment. It was enamel, colored blue and white; three parts blue and one part white. Below was a tiny “G” executed in small diamonds.

“Not such a lavish display of brilliants as in the badge of the Zone Officer, you'll note,” Roscoe commented. “This poor devil must have corresponded to something like a sergeant major.”

“He earned his pay,” said Stopford solemnly.

“I wonder if he did?”

“What d'you mean?”

“We shall know later,” was the cryptic reply.

“Shouldn't headquarters be informed?” Stopford asked as they made their way downstairs.

“Headquarters,” Roscoe answered, “is busy enough. There are no less than 450 men covering this section at the present moment!”

It was not a genial atmosphere which prevailed when, presently, the house party came together again. The wolf dogs, newly released, were making the night hideous with their howling.

“We must forgive them,” said Page Sutton, aside to Roscoe. “God knows they did their job tonight. Even now I find it hard to believe that Armitage was just a spy.”

“If you realized the genius behind the Zones,” Roscoe answered, “you wouldn't find it hard at all.”

He was watching Molly O'Hay as he spoke, and she, under cover, was watching the commander, although her conversation was divided between Ned Regan and Dr. Cross. Presently, however, the two came together, as was inevitable, since each was interested in the other.

“You know,” said Molly—her brogue was most luresome—“there's something so reminding about your eyes! It's not blarney, Commander. I'm honest. I seem to have seen those eyes before!”

Molly O'Hay had met him before, once only. For the first time in his open, active life he had been disguised, and wonderfully disguised—by Ned Regan. Yet—she recognized his eyes!

“Do you remember a party at the apartment of your uncle, Father Burke?” he asked. “There was rather a strange man there. I forget his name; but he is a friend of Madame Czerna's—”

“A man who looked like Napoleon!” Roscoe nodded. He had good reason to believe that the man who “looked like Napoleon” was Head Center!

“There was another queer bird,” he went on—“so my friend Stopford tells me: a dago dancer called, I think, Ramon de Sa.”

Molly shook her head.

As “Ramon de Sa” he had attended the party; and it was the eyes of the man she had forgotten which were so similar to the eyes of the man she was unlikely to forget!

There was a certain reluctance to break up the party. Nobody expected to sleep well. But when, at last, all the indications pointed to dispersal, Madame Czerna, who had been fencing with Stopford, grew suddenly serious. “I am in the room that should have been the room of your friend Commander Roscoe—”

“Don't worry. He's quite happy.”

“You do not understand.” Now he was watching her closely. “The thing I have to ask is this—but you must protect me if he says, 'Who told you?'—Do not let him sleep in that room tonight!”

Before Stopford had recovered from the surprise occasioned by this remark Madame had bade everybody good night, had made her apologies charmingly, explaining how the car accident had shaken her, and had started up the stair.

As she crossed the carpet-draped gallery she glanced back, raised her finger to her lips, and pointed to Roscoe.

HE dogs are quiet enough now,” said Stopford an hour later.

“Yes,” Roscoe replied, speaking in the same low tones. “If I am right in my theory the thing that is going to happen is above the dogs. But the death of Armitage perhaps stalled 'em.”

“Poor devil! D'you mean you've got a notion what he was up to out there?”

“Yes. Speak softly. Regan and Bach are covering this room, but I don't know who else may be doing the same.”

Stopford moved nearer to the open window.

“Easy!” Roscoe warned. “Not too near! Keep back! I'm supposed to be in bed—and you're supposed to be in your room. I think we've blinded the enemy, but I'm not sure.”

Stopford, silent in bath slippers, came back.

“Has the truth about Page Sutton's map dawned upon you?” Roscoe said softly.

“No. D'you think it's a fake?”

“I'm sure of it! And I think I know why it was handed over to Sutton. Regan thinks that Sutton's life is in danger—”

“It rather looks like it!”

“It was meant to look like it, Stopford! But Page Sutton actually isn't in a bit of danger. The danger is to me!”

“But—”

He ceased abruptly.

Heralded by one warning bark, the whole wolf dog pack came sweeping around an angle of the house and out headlong onto the lawn below the window.

The dogs plunged into the shrubbery, some uttering short angry barks, others snarling savagely. Their heavy bodies created a constant lashing sound among the undergrowth. They could be heard leaping—and falling back; leaping—and falling back.

“Someone on the other side of the hedge!” Stopford whispered.

“Perhaps. Listen.”

The uproar prevailed for fully five minutes. Then, as if obeying definite, mysterious canine orders, the pack broke out of cover and went racing from moonlight into shadow, around the angle of the house from which they had come.

“False alarm,” Stopford murmured.

“I don't think so,” said Roscoe. “I think someone has drawn them off on a false scent.”

“Eh? You're makin' me jumpy! Although your window's wide open, there's no chance of anybody gettin' at you, that I can see.”

“It would seem so,” Roscoe admitted. “Probably you have forgotten that it was a similar outbreak of the dogs which awakened June Sutton one night last week?”

“What's the connection?”

“May be none. Armitage's death has possibly spoiled their plans. Or Head Center may suspect, though he can't know, that June saw what was under her pillow before it was removed.”

“Before it was—gad! Got you! You think Armitage was coverin' her room for that very purpose?”

“There's only one other person in the house tonight, Stoppy, who may have the job!”

Stopford was silent. But the charming image of Madame Czerna leaped before his mind's eye.

“Yet—I don't understand,” he muttered.

“Don't try to. Be quiet—and listen.”

There was silence in the room. A faint breeze, salt from the Sound, disturbed the leaves and refreshed the hot, still air....

“D'you hear it?” Roscoe whispered.

A curious sibilant sound made itself audible.

The odd sibilance continued.

“We shall have to take the chance,” Roscoe whispered. “But if you flash too soon, it will ruin everything.”

The odd rustling continued.

“Any moment now,” Roscoe muttered. “Stand by.”

Stopford grasped the electric torch with which Roscoe had armed him.

“Now!” Roscoe snapped. “On to the pillow!”

There was a faint click in the darkness, and a disk of white light appeared upon the pillow where Roscoe's head might have lain.

“Hell!” Roscoe began.

“Merciful heaven!” Stopford whispered in strange contrast; and the light wavered momentarily.

HIDEOUS thing had crept over the edge of the lighted circle ... a black thing which now raced about feverishly as if looking for something. It was a spider, with a queerly swollen body, possessing a wasplike waist and hairy, active legs.

Roscoe sprang forward, arm upraised. He brought down the heavy heel of a golfing shoe upon the black horror—once! The softness of the pillow aiding, it still moved. Twice! The nauseous insect remained intact. But it lay still.

“Wait! Keep the light on it!”

Roscoe raced into the bathroom, to return in a moment with a glass. He clapped it over the spider, and:

“Hold it down!” he cried. “Tight, for your life! Switch the torch off! Do you hear it?”

The sibilant sound was audible again!

Roscoe stepped to the open window, moving his hands all about questioningly. Suddenly he found what he sought ... a tightly stretched strand of silk!

Even as he grasped it the strand was drawn through his fingers; the soft sound ceased; and the silken end shot out into the night. But, roughly, he had gauged the direction in which it was being drawn. Craning out, revolver in hand, he fired shot after shot into the boughs of one of the tall trees starting up from the distant shrubbery.

Pandemonium awakened. Police whistles sounded remotely. The dogs swept into view. There was uproar in the house. As Roscoe jumped to the switch and the room became flooded with light, Regan burst in, followed by Dr. Cross.

“Hold fast, Stopford!” Roscoe cried, ignoring their excited inquiries.

He grabbed a photograph from the mantelpiece, tore it from its frame, and slipped the board under the glass.

“This is in your province, Cross?” said Stopford rather breathlessly. “You're a tropical man.”

“Yes,” said the other—“it is. It's an hourglass spider, an unusually large specimen.” He shuddered. “It belongs out East. It's the only insect of its size whose bite is certainly fatal. Its victims swell up in a horrible way....”

“D'you see, Stopford?” cried Roscoe.

He jerked the pillow from the bed. Pinned at the back of it, in such a manner as to be invisible to the unconscious sleeper, was a wooden reel!

“But—June!” Stopford exclaimed. “Why should they want to—”

“They didn't!” Roscoe interrupted. “That was a rehearsal! Probably an ordinary garden spider was used on that occasion—to test the bridge. But tonight, having got me planted where they wanted me, they sent this black death across! Armitage had just completed the connection when the dogs reached him!”

A dozen voices began to speak at once. The dogs below were behaving madly. Ned Regan turned and thrust his way through the knot of excited people in the doorway. j

ICK-TICK! Ticker—Ticker-Tick—Tick!

Madame Czerna shuddered and drew her wrap more closely about her shoulders. Through the open window came the wild chorus of the wolf hounds, racing madly from point to point of the grounds. The house resounded with hysterical voices and hurrying foot steps. Her door alone remained closed and locked.

She bent over the tiny, exquisite instrument contained in a manicure case.

“H. Q.,” came over in Morse. “Head Center. Make your report quickly.”

“Zone 2A,” she signaled back. Her fingers were very unsteady. “Unable to move. Stop. Suspected. Stop. Shots fired Roscoe's room. No other information. Await orders. Report ends.”

“Conceal badge,” came a message in reply. “Be on guard. Stop. Conceal instrument. Stop. Report...”

The head of a hatchet crashed through the panel of the door. A strong, hairy hand reached down and turned the key. The door was thrown open—and Ned Regan came in!

Madame Czerna leaped up.

“Ah!” Regan growled. “Thought so! I heard the Morse, my dear!”

He came forward.

“Madame Czerna,” he said gruffly—“or whatever your real name is—you're under arrest for complicity in the attempted murder of Commander Drake Roscoe.”

The busy ticking had ceased. Echoing weirdly over the night waters of the Sound came the dense throb of an airplane propeller.

Madame Czerna, her beautiful face deathly pale, sank back into the chair from which she had arisen.

"The next story of the Emperor of America series by Sax Rohmer will appear in an early issue"