“They’ve wedged up the front door!” he cried and snatched the telephone receiver. “The wire’s cut!” said Patricia coldly. “And your man doesn’t answer the bell!” “Damnation!” exclaimed the young man. “I might have known he’d come here after you! And there’s no time to get out by the roof! To think that he’s walking calmly down Saint James’s Street . . .!” Again he tore out into the hall. The little flat rang to the din of his frantic assault on the front door. Presently the noise ceased. She heard the voice of Francis outside. “. . . Decoyed me away with a bogus message from the Chief,” he was saying, “and Batts is imprisoned in the lift with the cable cut. What’s happened to Patricia?” He came into the room. “Thank God, you’re all right!” he exclaimed. “Desmond rushed downstairs like a madman. What’s happened, Patricia?” She surveyed him coldly. “Nothing, only your clubfooted friend came here to fetch the ikon . . . my ikon. And your brother had the . . . the presence of mind to give it to him!” “Desmond gave it to him?” Francis Okewood seemed dazed. She nodded. Desmond Okewood reappeared, panting. Without speaking he crossed the sitting-room and went into the bedroom. “Are you sure?” asked Francis. “Didn’t I see it with my own eyes?” said the girl impatiently. “Without the least show of fight!” she added contemptuously. She gathered her furs around her. “Do you think I could get a taxi?” she asked. But Francis was staring past her. “Des.!” There was such unbounded amazement in his exclamation that, involuntarily, the girl turned round. Desmond Okewood stood behind them. And on the table before him lay the ikon. In the doorway of the bedroom appeared a little yellow-faced man muffled up to the eyes in an ulster and scarf. Desmond’s eyes twinkled. “Let me introduce Professor Krilenko, the celebrated Russian art connoisseur,” he said. “Although he is crippled with lumbago he came roof-climbing with me to-night to help me get the better of old Clubfoot. There’s friendship for you!” The Professor bowed and groaned piteously, snatching at his back. “What a man!” he said. Patricia Maxwell stared in silence at the pair. But her eyes were softer. Desmond turned to the Professor. “Tell them about it!” he said. Krilenko picked up the ikon. “Fate has placed in your hands, Madame,” he said in fluent English, “one of the most revered treasures of the Russian Church, none other than the miraculous ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk, smuggled out of Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution to save it from desecration at the hands of the Reds. It is probably a thousand years old, but the tradition is that it was painted by the evangelist Luke himself.