Kit was the last to go, and he stayed behind for half a minute. He went up to Joan and held out his hand. She looked up at his face in uncomprehending surprise, and saw that the hard lines had gone and the flinty glitter was no longer in his eyes. She put her hand in his, and he gave it a little squeeze. "Kid," he said, "there's a lot of good in you. And one hell of a big brick of courage. I won't preach--I know you'd hate that. But you know what I mean." How infinitely sweet and gentle his voice could be! "I am sorry--honest!" said Storm. "But there's quite a way to go between saying you're sorry and coming round with a wreath. In a very few days the Triangle's going to smash, and you don't want to be part of the bang. So don't be silly. Get Jimmy away.... Good luck!" From the doorway she watched him stride down the corridor. She was conscious of a vague, indescribable feeling deep within her. Something that troubled her, that she could not understand and yet was on the brink of understanding, seemed to have awakened against her volition. Something pleasant and yet rather frightening. Something that kindled up with the promise of a sweeping flame ... something that had died, was reborn. "Captain Arden!" she called, and he stopped. "Hullo?" "Captain Arden." Her speech was a little faltering, a little tremulous. "You--you're the only busy I've ever met who was--pure white--all the way through." He smiled and waved his hand cheerily; and then he turned to the stairs and ran down. He found Teal and Blaythwayt waiting for him in the street, and the detective had his friend's arm in an ominously professional grip. "Joe and me," said Teal, oblivious of grammar, "is going to have words!" "I hope you won't be rude to each other!" said Storm piously. They walked down Piccadilly together, and they had almost reached Burlington House when all three of them saw an amazing sight. Down in Piccadilly Circus, where the statue of Eros once stood, there flickered into being for an instant a terrific blinding blaze of violet light. It seemed to lurch up from the roadway in one colossal wave of whirling, jagged, eye-tormenting luminance--a Cyclopean flood of flaring amethyst which stunned vision and paralysed the brain. In a thousandth of a second it was gone, splintering into a star-searing burst of intolerable dazzling white radiance shot with zigzagging streaks of orange fire. And right in the flash of that fearful disintegration came a shattering, detonating thunder that rocked the very earth under their feet and pounded and pulverised the senses into an agony of quivering helplessness. And then, on the heels of the awful reverberation, followed a mighty rushing wind which reeled them out of all equilibrium and hurled them dazed and breathless to the ground. CHAPTER XX MECKLEN IS DISOBEDIENT On a hot summer night the library of Terry Mannering's house in Brook Street was a cool alluring room.