Two men in the front jumped up and caught Susan by the arms. They hurried her on to the platform, against the huge silver triangle, and began to tie her wrists to two of the corners, so that the base ran across her back. She fought desperately, striking out at their faces with her clenched fists, but with a couple of sulphurous ejaculations as the first blows got home they closed in and gripped her arms, holding her helpless. Morini was standing beside Storm, his automatic swinging ostentatiously at the "ready" in case of any attempt to go to the girl's assistance. But Storm made no move to attack. He stepped back, folding his arms so that the hands came in the armholes of his coat, and under cover of the cloth he was working away at the sleeves of his bullet-proof vest. And all the time he cursed silently, although his face never betrayed his kindling fury. He'd been caught! His precious plot had had a link in it so weak it wouldn't have carried an emaciated guinea-pig, and he'd never seen the flaw. He'd plumbed the uttermost profundities of multitude; he'd attained dizzy pinnacles of boobery; he'd wallowed in oceans of sublime insanity. To Bill Kennedy that morning he had confessed that in the past he'd been a mug, and he'd sworn he was going to atone for it--instead of which he'd rolled out of an ordinary frying-pan into a fire that was more like a roaring blast furnace.... Susan was bound, now, and the two who had done it were back in their pews, rubbing bruised shins and muttering luridly. "You have a gun, Mecklen," said the Apex. "You were told to kill Miss Hawthorne, and you disobeyed. There is still time." Lew took his revolver from his pocket and looked from it to his leader. Brute as he was, there was something ghastly about such a cold-blooded murder which he found hard to stomach, and he frowned doubtfully, as though unwilling to comprehend. Surcon returned the look with a remorseless determination gleaming in his blue eyes. Slowly Mecklen raised the gun.... "One moment!" The Apex turned to Storm, and that deep, sonorous intonation filled the room like a chant of doom. "You may be less sure of yourself now, Captain Arden. It is now my turn to offer you a choice.... Take Miss Hawthorne and go free to report at Scotland Yard. Resign. And then go abroad for three months and forget all about the Alpha Triangle. Refuse those terms----" "And----?" prompted Storm, very quietly. "And Mecklen will not be disobedient a second time." Storm looked at the girl. She was standing quite still now, her head erect, and a light of proud defiance in her eyes. "Tell him to go to blazes!" Her voice rang out with bell-like clarity, and there was not a hint of faltering in it. Storm swallowed a lump that had come into his throat. His head bowed, as if in the agony of making his decision, but all the while his hands fumbled away swiftly and surely at his arms. Another second....