psychoanalyst to be overhauled. This delving into the unknown was too ponderable a matter for a man of his years. It had become fixed on his mind with all the power of an obsession. All that day he had not stirred from his observatory, and now Olinski was coming from town to give a verbal report of his own findings. Much cogitation, much secrecy was, in effect, nothing at all. Unless they now had found the key. Was it possible that Olinski might be bringing a transcribed cipher of a radio message from Mars? His eager acceptance of the invitation to dinner seemed to hold an important significance for Henry.

Desperately bothered by both problems which confronted me, the bats made things more annoying still. Then, sudden-like, in the haunting stillness, I saw something moving towards me from the blackish void of trees and shrubbery bordering the west end of the terrace. At first, I was conscious only of an oncoming shadow, advancing with a rapid, noiseless movement.

I could feel my pulse jumping. Whoever or whatever it was, there was a risk. Rather than face the risk, I moved quietly but swiftly across the terrace towards the front door. But that did not stop the oncoming something; it had suddenly changed its direction and was coming right at me.

Luckily at that moment, the lights were turned on in the lower part of the castle. Then Orkins opened the front door, and gave voice to a surprised exclamation as he saw me making hurriedly for the doorway.

Suddenly I stopped, and turned. The glow of a floor lamp in the entrance hall had spread fanwise across the terrace, and into this arc of light strode--Serge Olinski.

"Oh, hello, Olinski!" I exclaimed, with respectful familiarity, and very cordially, stretching out my hand, and smiling to myself at the start he had given me, coming like an abortive something out of the shadows of the terrace. "That you?"

"Yes; it is I," Olinski replied, shaking my proffered hand, and breathing rather heavily.

I faced a short, dumpy, middle-aged man, with a paunch, and a Russian cast of countenance. Small, intelligent black eyes gleamed through shell-rimmed glasses, from a round face fringed with a short, black beard. He carried his hat, and I observed that his primly sleeked hair was as black as his beard. I had a suspicion that he dyed them.

"I caught an early train from the city, in order to enjoy the benefit of a walk from the village to your beautiful 

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