“Put your hands up,” roared Goodall, “or, by God, I’ll let daylight through you.” Four hands went sullenly up, while the woman sank quivering to the floor. Goodall walked to the man that was armed and quietly took the revolver from his hip pocket. “‘Snoop’ Mortimer and Alice Mortimer,” he said deliberately, “I arrest you on the charge of murdering James Mason at the Hanover Galleries on the morning of June 9th last.” Sergeant Clegg came out of the circle of light by the doors and clicked the handcuffs on the man’s wrists. The woman lay prostrate on the floor. Goodall administered the usual caution. He then walked to the elder man who stood grey and ashen by the library table, completely paralyzed at the dramatic interruption. “I also arrest you, John Butterworth,” he said, “for the murder of your master, Laurence P. Stewart, on the night of June 8th!” Butterworth reeled and swayed like a tree shaken in the wind—then held out his hands mechanically for the handcuffs—the bracelets from which, for murderers, there is no escape. CHAPTER XXIV The Secret of the Screens The library door closed upon the three prisoners. Goodall’s mouth was set in lines that were grim and hard—the man-hunting game is no occupation for the squeamish. “Clegg and his men will have them in the cells in no time,” he declared. “And the papers will sell well to-morrow morning.” But his remark evoked no response from the others—all eyes had gone to Charles Stewart. He had sunk into a chair—the very chair, as it happened, where his father had been sitting when he had met his death—thoroughly overcome by the events of the evening. “Butterworth,” he muttered incredulously in a broken voice—“Butterworth! A man that my father would have trusted with anything”—he put his head into his hands and his shoulders shook in his emotion. “Come—come,” said Anthony, “you mustn’t break down like this—personally I was somewhat relieved to find that it was Butterworth whom we were trailing and not anybody else.” Stewart lifted up his face and looked at Anthony searchingly. “You were _relieved_?” he queried. “Didn’t you know then till to-night?” “Some time before to-night, Mr. Stewart,” replied Bathurst with a sympathetic movement of the head. “You see I had some occasion to suspect him from the very first.” Stewart looked at him again blankly and a trifle doubtfully. “To me,” he continued, “it has come as a very great shock. I don’t think I shall ever be able to forget it.”