Gilchrist shuddered and thought suddenly of the terrified man behind the curtain, dimly realizing the significance to that overwrought brain of these fatal words. He glanced at the betraying bulge, saw it move slightly. Williamson smiled down into the intelligent eyes of his old dog. “Tiger, old fellow,” he said jocularly, “you’ve made a mistake--you’ve brought this message to the wrong man. It is evidently meant for the person who shot poor old Hepplewhite. Here”--he held it out to the dog--“take it to him. _Find him!_” The dog took the paper in his jaws, wagged his tail with a comprehending look up at his master, and ran, following the scent which was on the paper, across the room. He stopped, pawing at the bulged curtain. Williamson stared after him in amusement. “Is he there, Tiger?” he said, humouring the intelligent animal. “Have you found him?” Gilchrist stood speechless. What was coming next? The curtain was flung suddenly aside. The old gentleman stood revealed, stepped forward into the room. His bulbous eyes were unwholesomely bright. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I surrender. You have won. I might, of course, shoot you”--he took a revolver from his pocket--“as I shot your confederate in the train to-night. But I recognize that it would be useless. Your Society would raise up yet other avengers----” Both Gilchrist and Williamson had shrunk back in alarm from that brandished revolver--were unable, in their astonishment, to utter a word. They could only stare, bewildered. The old gentleman looked down at the dog which still offered him the paper. “I understand--perfectly,” he said, with a grim appreciation of some subtlety which eluded them. “In a better cause, I should admire the ingenuity with which you have utilized means which are apparently of the simplest. I do homage to your powers, gentlemen. Or perhaps you yourselves are only half-conscious tools of that occult force you think you control--that occult force which has, with such singular completeness, worked my ruin.” There was a sneer in his voice. He turned to Gilchrist. “As for you, sir, I congratulate you on your faculty of dissimulation. You gulled me excellently well. I can only bow in acknowledgment of the supreme irony with which you beguiled me into telling you the miserable story which, of course, you already knew far better than I. I do not grudge you your triumph. It was superbly well planned. You held me without suspicion whilst you awaited the arrival--for the last time--of the symbol of my doom--_the white dog_!” His smile was an illumination of savage sarcasm. There was a pause of silence in which Williamson glanced inquiringly at his friend. The old gentleman laughed in a mirthless mockery which was hideous to hear.