For answer he turned up the gas and pointed to the cornice of the ceiling behind the wardrobe, where I saw that upon the leaden gas-pipe running along it was a long, narrow strip of what looked like paper which had been pasted. "Those men meant to kill you, Jack," he said. "On the morning I came here Straus had entered, climbed up to the gas-pipe, and with his clasp-knife cut a hole in it. Over that he, as you see, placed several thicknesses of medical plaster, attaching to it a piece of strong black cord, and carrying it outside the door. After that they plugged up your window and chimney, so that when you were asleep all they had to do was to just pull the string, which would strip off the plaster, allow the gas to escape into the room, and thus asphyxiate you. The plaster could be dragged beneath the door into the passage outside." "Great heavens!" I gasped, staring astounded at the white medical plaster on the gas-pipe along the cornice. "What a narrow escape I've had!" "Yes. While I was in London, Vera went up with her maid and stayed at the 'Star' at Kingussie, where she overheard the two men in conversation, and learnt the clever trick they were playing with Goldstein as the spy. She suspected that they intended to rid themselves of your unwelcome surveillance, and returned at once to me in London. Fortunately I discovered the dastardly plot, and that morning I cut the cord." "That fellow Straus is a much more desperate character than he looks." "Yes. But we'll just go back and you can tell him your opinion of him," he laughed. We went together along to No. 11. The spy had already left, but ascending the stairs was Vera, in a long travelling-coat, her maid following with the wraps. She had just arrived from London, and after she had greeted us in her usual merry manner, told us that she was the bearer of very important news--news of the activity of spies in another quarter. We quickly told her how we had managed to outwit Straus, while I, on my part, thanked her warmly for having made that startling discovery which had, no doubt, saved me from falling a victim to that dastardly plot formed by one of the most ingenious of the many unscrupulous spies of the Kaiser. CHAPTER VI THE SECRET OF THE NEW ARMOUR-PLATES "I wonder if that fellow is aware of his danger?" remarked Ray, speaking to himself behind the paper he was reading before the fire in New Stone Buildings, one afternoon not long after we had returned from Scotland. "What fellow?" I inquired. "Why Professor Emden," he replied. "It seems that in a lecture at the London Institution last night, he announced that he had discovered a new process for the hardening of steel, which gives it no less than eight times the resisting power of the present English steel!" "Well!" I asked, looking across at my friend, and then glancing at Vera, who had called and was seated with us, her hat still on, and a charming figure to boot.