Joseph Almer and Captain Woodhouse sat in the darkened and heavily blinded office-reception room of the Hotel Splendide. All the hotel had long since been put to bed, and the silence in the rambling house was audible. The hands of the Dutch clock on the wall were pointing to the hour of three-thirty.

Strain was on both the men. They spoke in monosyllables, and only occasionally. Almer's hand went out from time to time to lift a squat bottle of brandy from the table between them and pour a tiny glass brimful; he quaffed with a sucking noise. Woodhouse did not drink.

"It is three-thirty," the latter fretted, with an eye on the mottled clock dial.

"He will come," Almer assured. A long pause.

"This man Jaimihr—he is thoroughly dependable?" The man in uniform put the question with petulant bruskness.

"It is his passion—what we are to do to-night—something he has lived for—his religion. Nothing except judgment day could—— Hah!"

The sharp chirp of a telephone bell, a dagger of sound in the silence, broke Almer's speech. He bounded to his feet; but not so quickly as Woodhouse, who was across the room in a single stride and had the receiver to his ear.

"Well, well! Yes, this is the one you name." Woodhouse turned to Almer, and his lips framed the word Jaimihr. "Yes, yes; all is well—and waiting. Bishop? He is beyond interference—coming down the Rock—I did the work silently. What's that?" Woodhouse's face was tensed in strain; his right hand went to a breast pocket and brought out a pencil. With it he began making memoranda on the face of a calendar by his side.

"Seven turns—ah, yes—four to the left—correct." His writing hand was moving swiftly. "Press, one to the right. Good! I have it, and am off at once. Good-by!"

Woodhouse finished a ............