Again a clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour. And again.  
One o'clock.
 
Two o'clock.
 
The embers in the fireplace had long since turned to black charred things. Locke raised his head. Two o'clock! He had not been conscious of it when the last little glow had died away. He had turned out the light when Polly had gone—and had sat there staring at the dying fire. He had not put on another log. The fire was dead now—quite dead. He had been staring into a black fireplace—that was as black as the room itself.
 
Two o'clock!
 
He stood up, and, going to the windows, flung back the portières. It was still blowing hard; but the moon was beginning to show through the scudding clouds. He brushed his hand heavily across his eyes. It was very still in the house; but the stillness itself seemed a disquiet, untranquil, chaotic thing. Polly! Yes, Polly had filled his thoughts during those two hours—Polly, and Captain Francis Newcombe. But he had not forgotten withal the bizarre appointment he was to keep with Mr. Marlin in the aquarium—at a quarter past two. One would not be likely to forget so extraordinary a thing in any case, no matter what might meanwhile have intervened—even if Mr. Marlin had not been so grotesquely persistent in his reminders. A dozen times that day the old man had plucked significantly at his, Locke's, coat sleeve, or had signalled mysteriously with his finger to his lips; and twice, with a childish titter, the old man had come upon him unexpectedly and had said exactly the same thing on each occasion.
 
"Tee-hee, tee-hee!" the old man had tittered. "It is all right for to-night, my boy—you will see—you will see. And they thought I was a fool. Do not say a word. Keep quiet—keep quiet—you will see."
 
What would he see? What would he learn? Much—or little? Would it be only the babble of a sick brain? Queer, strange, almost impossible conditions in this house! Where would they climax—and how? Whose hand held the trumps?
 
His eyes fixed suddenly on a spot across the lawn. Something seemed to have moved there. Fancy, perhaps; or a shadow cast by the swaying branches. The moon was just coming out from under the edge of a cloud—another moment and he would be able to tell if anything were there. Yes! A woman emerging from the path that led to the shore. The figure began to cross the lawn, approaching the house.
 
And then Locke's eyes narrowed suddenly in astonishment. It wasn't a woman at all; it was a man wearing a long gown, a dressing gown. It was Mr. Marlin. And the man kept cocking his head from side to side; and he appeared to be carrying something under the dressing gown—at least his arm was crooked up as though he held a bundle there.
 
Locke smiled now a little grimly, as the old man finally disappeared around the corner of the house. It was almost a quarter past two. He would find Mr. Marlin in the aquarium.
 
He drew the portières together again, and, leaving the room, went out into the reception hall beyond. There was no light showing anywhere and he was obliged to feel his way along. The aquarium was in, or, rather, composed in itself, a little wing built at the rear of the house, but connected therewith by a short, covered passageway. He knew the way quite well—he had been there with Polly on that first day.
 
That first day! That was only yesterday ... it was incredible, impossible.... His mind was running riot as he groped his way to the rear of the main staircase and into the wide passage that ran parallel with the length of the house. But then the whole place was incredible! The house itself was like a great hotel with its corridors and its endless number of rooms! This was Mr. Marlin's room here at his right, and—
 
He stood still. A door on his left had opened. It shut again instantly—and then he could hear it being cautiously reopened a little way.
 
"Don't you move!" said a voice in a fierce whisper. "Don't you move! I can see you! If you move I will shoot you!"
 
Locke found his muscles, that had suddenly grown tense and strained, as suddenly relaxed. He could see nothing—the door wasn't wide enough open—but it was the old madman's voice. Strange, though! How had the man got there? That wasn't Mr. Marlin's room—Mr. Marlin's room was on the opposite side of the hall. Yes, of course, there must be an entrance into the house there of some sort.
 
"It's Locke," he announced quietly. "That's you, Mr. Marlin, isn't it?"
 
"Hah!" ejaculated the other. "You, my boy, eh? Well, that's quite different. Of course, it's you. You know the value of being prompt. Excellent! Excellent! Be very quiet—but hurry! Follow me. We have only a little time."
 
Locke could just make out the old man's form now as the other came through the door—and then in the darkness it was lost again. But the patter of footsteps ahead of him, hurrying along, served as a guide. He followed the other to the end of the hall, turned into the covered passageway, and was halted again by the old man, this time at the door of the aquarium.
 
"Tee-hee!" tittered the maniac. "They think they are dealing with a fool. Wait! Wait, young man, I will see that the window shades are all down before we turn on the light—though there will be no one here to-night except ourselves—tee-hee!—they will be somewhere else!"
 
The old man opened the door and disappeared. And now Locke, as he waited, and though he listened, could not hear the other moving around inside—what sound the old man made was drowned by the noise of running water through the pipes that fed the tanks, and, added to this, the low, constant drip and trickle that pervaded the place.
 
Presently the lights went on.
 
"Here!" cried the old man. "Come over here!"
 
Locke blinked a little in the light as he stepped forward. It reflected bewilderingly from the glass faces of the tanks that were everywhere about. He joined the old man in the centre of the aquarium. Here there was an open space from which the tanks radiated off much after the manner of the spokes of a wheel, and this space was utilised as a sort of luxurious observation point, so to speak, for a heavy oriental rug was on the tiled floor, and ranged around a table were a number of big easy chairs.
 
From under his dressing gown now the old man took a package that was wrapped in oiled silk, and laid it on the table.
 
"Money!" he cried out abruptly. "Hah! We know its power, young man, you and I!" He began to fumble with the cord that was tied around the package; and then suddenly commenced to titter again. "Did I not tell you I was being followed, always being followed? Well, last night they followed a wrong scent. Tee-hee! Tee-hee! I told you you would see who was the fool! They are there to-night—digging—digging—digging. Tee-hee! Tee-hee! They will dig the place all up before they are sure it is not there."
 
Money! That package! Locke's lips tightened a little. Was this, as he had more than half expected, what he was to "see"—the half-million dollars at last that Polly had seen? And what did the man mean by "wrong scent"? And "digging"?
 
"Yes, of course, Mr. Marlin," said Locke quietly. "Of course, they will! But who is it that is following you?"
 
The old man dropped the package from his hands and leaned across the table, his eyes suddenly ablaze.
 
"If I knew, I would kill them!" he whispered. "It is everybody—everybody!"
 
"Perhaps you are mistaken." Locke spoke in a soothing tone. "Did you see anybody following you last night?"
 
"It is not necessary to see"—the old madman's whisper had become suddenly confidential—"I know. They were there—they are always there—watching—eyes are always watching." He broke into his insane titter once more. "Tee-hee, yes, yes; and we are being watched by thousands of eyes to-night—look at them—look at them—the pretty things—see them swimming all around you—but they look and they say nothing—and they do not follow me." His voice was rising shrilly; he began to gesticulate with his hands, pointing with darting little motions at one tank after another. "Do you hear? You need not be afraid because they watch. They will not follow us."
 
Locke sat down leisurely in a chair facing the other across the table. He was rather curious about this mysterious digging of last night, a little more than curious—but, also, it was necessary to calm the old maniac's growing excitement.
 
"I am quite sure of that, Mr. Marlin," he agreed heartily. "We should be perfectly safe here, especially as you say that you have succeeded in making whoever was following you watch somewhere else. That was very clever of you, Mr. Marlin."
 
The old man put his finger to his lips.
 
"I'll tell you where it was, young man," he said. "The old hut in the woods behind the house. They think it's there. They think that's where I hide the money. And they'll keep on looking there. It will take them a long while. They will be looking there to-night—and perhaps to-morrow night, too. And then they will begin to follow me again. But it will be too late—too late for many, many days, because the time-lock will be set—ha, ha—God supplies the time-lock, young man—you do not understand that—but can you imagine any one opening a time-lock that God has made?"
 
Locke took refuge in a cigarette. Apart from some mare's nest in an old hut, it was quite hopeless! The old maniac's condition was growing steadily worse. There was a marked change in even the last twenty-four hours. It did not require any professional eye to discern that.
 
"I think," suggested Locke conversationally, "that you were going to show me something in that package, Mr. Marlin."
 
"Yes," said the old madman instantly, and as though quite oblivious of any digression. "That is why you are here. Listen! You will tell your father about it. I do not ask others to do what I do not do myself. Your father must do the same. He must get all the great capitalists of America to do likewise—it is the only thing that will save the country from ruin and disaster. Look!" The old man ripped off the cord and wrapper, and there tumbled out upon the table, each held together with two or three elastic bands, a half dozen or more small bundles of bank notes. "See! See! Do you see, young man?"
 
Locke with difficulty maintained an impassive countenance. He had expected something of the sort, but it seemed somehow incredible that a sum so great as Polly had named should be represented by those few little bundles scattered there on the table in front of him. He picked one of them up and riffled the notes through his fingers. It contained perhaps a hundred bills, each one of the denomination of a thousand dollars—one hundred thousand dollars. He laid the bundle back on the table. Others were of like denomination; others again of five hundred. The full amount was undoubtedly there.
 
"Do you know how much is there?" demanded the old madman sharply.
 
Locke regarded the money thoughtfully. To name the exact amount offhand might aggravate the old maniac's already suspicious frame of mind.
 
"I can see that there is a very large sum," he answered cautiously.
 
"A large sum!" echoed the madman aggressively. "And what do you call a large sum, young ............