Thaxton paused long enough in his work of resuscitation to take from his hip pocket the big German army knife which Clive had brought him from overseas. “Here!” he said, opening the corkscrew and handing the knife to her. “What a barbarous contraption!” commented Miss Gregg, as she strove to extract the cork from her smelling-bottle. “How do you happen to be carrying it in your dinner clothes?” “I stuck it into my pocket, along with my cash, when I changed, I suppose,” said Vail, as he worked. “I was in a rush, and I--” “That’s a murderous-looking thing on the back of it,” she went on, as she finished drawing the cork and laid the knife on the table. “It looks like the business-half of a medieval poniard.” “That’s a punch, of some sort,” he answered absently. “Got the smelling salts ready yet?” “He’s coming around!” announced Chase, as Miss Gregg knelt beside the unconscious man to apply the bottle to his pinched nostrils. “See, his eyes are opening.” Clive Creede blinked, shivered, then stared foolishly about. At sight of the faces bending above him he frowned and essayed weakly to sit up. “I--surely I wasn’t such a baby as to keel over, was--was I?” he panted, thickly. “Don’t try to talk!” begged Doris. “You’re all right now. It’s been too much for you. Let Thax and Willis help you up to bed. Auntie, don’t you think we ought to telephone for Dr. Lawton?” “No,” begged Clive, his voice somewhat less wobbly. “Please don’t. A good night’s rest will set me up. I’m ashamed to have--” “Don’t waste breath in talking, old man!” put in Vail. “I’m a rotten host, to have let you have all this strain when you were sick. Don’t go struggling to get up. Lie still. So!” Deftly he passed his arms under the prostrate man’s knees and shoulders. Then, with a bracing of his muscles, he lifted Clive from the floor. “Go ahead, and open the door of his bedroom,” he bade Chase. “I’ll carry him up.” “No!” protested Clive, struggling. “I--” “Quiet, please,” said Vail. “It’ll be easy to carry you, but not if you squirm. Gangway!” CHAPTER X A CRY IN THE NIGHT Doris Lane followed him with her admiring gaze, noting how lightly he bore the invalid and with what tenderness he overrode Creede’s petulant remonstrances. “Yes,” said Miss Gregg, as though answering a question voiced by her niece. “Yes, he is splendidly strong. And he’s gentle, too. A splendid combination--for a husband. I mean, for one’s own husband. It is thrown away, in another woman’s.” “I don’t understand you at all,” rebuffed Doris. “No? Well, who am I, to scold you for denying it, just after my longwinded lecture on the virtues of lying?” “Auntie,” said the girl, speaking in feverish haste in her eagerness to shift the subject, “have you any idea at all who committed the robberies? Have you?” “Yes,” returned the old lady, with no hesitation at all. “I know perfectly well who did it.” “You do!” “I haven’t an atom of doubt. It was Osmun Creede.”