CHAPTER III

MIDNIGHT—AND THE MAN

The next two days were busy ones for Sheard, who, from a variety of causes—the chief being his intimacy with the little circle which, whether it would or not, gathered around Mr. Julius Rohscheimer—found himself involved in the mystery of Séverac Bablon. He had interviewed this man and that, endeavouring to obtain some coherent story of the great "hold up," but with little success. Everything was a mysterious maze, and Scotland Yard was without any clue that might lead to the solution. All the Fleet Street crime specialists had advanced theories, and now, on the night of the third day after the audacious robbery, Sheard was contributing his theory to the Sunday newspaper for which he worked.

The subject of his article was the identity of Séverac Bablon, whom Sheard was endeavouring to prove to be not an individual, but a society; a society, so he argued, formed for the immolation of Capital upon the altars of Demos.

The course of reasoning that he had taken up proved more elusive than he had anticipated.

His bundle of notes lay before him on the table. The news of the latest outrage, the burning of the great Runek Mills in Ontario, had served to convince him that his solution was the right one; yet he could make no headway, and the labours of the last day or so had left him tired and drowsy.

He left his table and sank into an arm-chair by the study fire, knocking out his briar on a coal and carefully refilling and lighting that invaluable collaborator. With his data presently arranged in better mental order, he returned to the table and covered page after page with facile reasoning. Then the drowsiness which he could not altogether shake off crept upon him again, and staring at the words "Such societies have existed in fiction, now we have one existing in fact," he dropped into a doze—as the clock in the hall struck one.

When he awoke, with his chin on his breast, it was to observe, firstly, that the MS. no longer lay on the pad, and, secondly, on looking up, that a stranger sat in the arm-chair, opposite, reading it!

"Who——" began Sheard, starting to his feet.

Whereupon the stranger raised a white, protesting hand.

"Give me but one moment's grace, Mr. Sheard," he said quietly, "and I will at once apologise and explain!"

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