They burst panting into the garage, and might have come to a check there among the miscellaneous assortment of trucks and cars but for the spectacled man who happened precisely at that moment to be emerging from the secret panel behind the tire cupboard. In an instant he was whisking back, like a startled mouse which has peeped out of its hole and looked straight into the eyes of a hungry cat; but Mr. Teal, moving at a rate of knots which his weight and inertia made to seem positively supernatural, crossed the concrete flooring like a whiff of smoke. He reached out a long arm and grabbed the horn-rimmed gentleman before that blushing violet could obscure himself behind the closing slide. "Carl, darling," hissed Teal, "why did you leave your happy home? And how's Mr. Nitrogen Trichloride this merry morning?" Before Mr. Schwesen could utter a suitable reply, Teal had yanked him halfway across the place and smothered him in a stifling bear-hug. And thereafter, while practised hands clicked gyves upon floundering wrists, the eminent Austrian chemist found it necessary to reserve all his energies for the task of avoiding suffocation. It was all over in a trice, and, even as the remainder of the thirty poured in through the broken door, Mr. Schwesen was on his way to the police van which waited in Petty France. The fat being thoroughly in the fire by now, speed became the order of the day. Headed by Teal, whose injured shoulder was by this time troubling him far more than he would ever have admitted, the constables rushed through the cupboard and down the short tunnel to the cellars. Two men were left to guard the end of the passage, and the rest raced up the stairs. The hall was deserted. Moving as silently as they could, the detectives opened each door in turn, finding large volumes of vacancy at every attempt. Two doors only were left for investigation when Teal, issuing his orders in a hoarse whisper, detached half his force to make a round of the upstairs rooms and guard against an escape, similar to the getaway the Triangle had brought off in Billingsgate, by means of an opening into an adjoining house. At the same time, the front door was unbolted without noise, and Bill Kennedy, together with some of those who were watching Buckingham Gate, came in soundlessly. And then Teal silently turned the handle of the first of the two remaining ground-floor doors. A dark, narrow corridor fronted him, and he signalled for only six men to accompany him. There was no window or light of any sort in the runway, and when they had gone twenty paces the faint light which filtered in from the gloomy hall ceased to be of any assistance. As quietly as he could manage, Teal kindled a match, and found that the passage terminated in a dead end, the only outlet being a low door which opened off on the right. Teal laid a cautious hand on the knob, and suddenly a tremor ran up his spine, for the handle was turning of itself under his light grasp....