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This wager, made in the superintendent's room, had so much pleased that official, to-day more oppressed by his superiors than by his work, that he had actually invited Sir Randal to give him a call after dinner. The others were merely expected. "After dinner" is an elastic appointment, and Randal stretched it as late as Caldegard's impatience would endure.
And Caldegard's face, as he listened without a word, was a tragedy which Dick Bellamy, heeding it not at all for the moment, remembered all his life. "Set every dog in the world on the men who've stolen Ambrotox," he said in conclusion, "and you'll find Amaryllis. A trace of one is a track of the other; news of either is news of both. Leave the local work to me."
Randal turned the key, swung back the heavy door, groped for a minute, and swung round with a face like death. "What's gone?" cried Dick. "Caldegard's drug-bottle and formula!" Search of house and grounds was fruitless. Before half-past eleven the rainstorm was over, and a bright moon lighted the brothers and the men-servants to the discovery of just nothing at all.
"That is the danger," he said, "which we have to face: that these foul pests of society should escape with Professor Caldegard's discovery and master his secret a peril to which all the dangers mankind has run since the world began from greed, bigotry, alcohol and opium are child's play.
And he remembered how he had upset the silver candlestick, setting fire to the shades, to cover the girl's discomfort, and the smile she had paid him with. Then it was this particular murder from which the thief had shrunk. Melchard, the chemist, had guessed at the direction of Caldegard's research.
Discharged at a moment when his hope of mastering a valuable secret was at its height, he had found means to track Caldegard's movements, and even, it seemed, to discover the hiding-place of the perfected drug and its formula. "Agent or, p'r'aps, a leading member of the Dope Gang Caldegard hinted at. He lays his plans to grab the stuff and the formula.
And, turning, he put the Ambrotox and the formula into Caldegard's hand, smiling his crooked smile. "That's the lot," he murmured, and laid his head on his arms, folded upon the table. An uncomfortable pause was broken by the entrance of a constable with a card. "Gentleman wishes to know if Mr. Richard Bellamy is here," he said to the superintendent. But Dick did not move.
"Has he prevented it tell me that?" cried Caldegard. And, as if in answer, the bell of Finucane's telephone jarred the nerves of all three men. While he listened to the one-sided interview between the superintendent and the instrument on his table, Caldegard's control was in danger of breaking down altogether. "Hold the line," said Finucane at last. "Dr.
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