It was only the yelp of a dog, heard here and there as Silly Charlie and Alan Warburton sped through the streets and lanes, but its effect was magical. It told the rioters, the crooks and outlaws in hiding, that there was danger abroad,--that the police were among them. And their orgies were hushed, their haunts became silent and tenantless; while every man who had anything to fear from the hands of justice--and what man among them had not?--slunk away to his secret hiding-place, and laid a fierce clutch upon revolver or knife. The Raid was an utter failure; and Van Vernet, as he led his men ruefully homeward, little dreamed of the cause of the failure. This night's work, which had been pre-supposed a sure success, had been spoiled by a fool. A most unusual fool,--of that Vernet was fully aware; only a fool as he played his part. But he had played it successfully. Vernet had been duped by this seeming idiot, and foiled by the sailor-assassin. Of this he savagely assured himself, in the depths of his chagrin. But, shrewd man as he was, he never once imagined that under the rags and tinsel, the dirt and disfigurement of the fool, the strong will and active brain of _Richard Stanhope_ were arrayed against him; nor dreamed that "Warburton, the aristocrat," the man who had wounded his pride and looked down upon him as an inferior, had escaped from his clutches in the garb of a common sailor. Arrived at head-quarters, Vernet laid before his Chief a full report of the night's misadventures, and concluded his narrative thus: "It has never before been my misfortune to report so complete a failure. But the affair shall not end here. I have my theory; I intend to run down these two men, and I believe they will be worth the trouble I shall take on their account. They were both shams, I am sure. The sailor never saw a masthead; he could not even act his part. The other--well, he played the fool to perfection, and--he outwitted _me_." One thing troubled Vernet not a little. Richard Stanhope did not make a late appearance at the Agency. He did not come at all that night, or rather that morning. And Vernet speculated much as to the possible cause of this long delay. It was late in the day when Stanhope finally presented himself, and then he entered the outer office alert, careless, _debonnaire_ as usual; looking like a man with an untroubled conscience, who has passed the long night in peaceful repose. Vernet, who had arrived at the office but a moment before, lifted his face from the newspaper he held and cast upon his _confrere_ an inquiring glance. But Dick Stanhope was blind to its meaning. With his usual easy morning salutation to all in the room, he passed them, and applied for admittance at the door of his Chief's private office. It was promptly opened to him, and he walked into the presence of his superior as jauntily as if he had not, by his unaccountable absence, spoiled the most important Raid of the season.