"I'm pretty sure myself, but even now you don't know all. Quite early in his life, when Midwinter--he's the last of the Staffordshire Midwinters, an ancient and famous family--was expelled from Harrow, he went out to South America. Morse was at that time in the wilds of Goyaz, where he was developing his mines. There was a futile attempt to kidnap the child, Juanita, who was then about two years old, and Midwinter was in it. The young gentleman, I understand, was caught. Morse was then, as doubtless he is now, a man of a grim and terrible humor. He took young Midwinter and treated him with every possible contemptuous indignity. They say his head was shaved; he was birched like a schoolboy by Morse's peons; he was branded, tarred and feathered, and turned contemptuously adrift. The fellow came back to Europe, married a celebrated actress in Paris, who is now dead, and has been, as I say, one of the most successful uncaught members of the higher criminal circles that ever was. He made an attempt at the Ritz, swallowing his hatred. It failed. His employers in Brazil know nothing of it. He is here in London--as Pat so wonderfully discovered--supplied with unlimited money, burning with a hatred of which a decent man can have no conception, and confronted with his last chance in the world." As he said this, Arthur got up, bit his lip savagely and left the room. It was about two-thirty in the afternoon. Though he closed the door after him, I heard voices in the corridor, and the door reopened an inch or two as if some one was holding it before coming in. "You are not well, my lord?" "Oh, I'm all right, Preston; just feeling a little faint, that's all. Sorry to nearly have barged into you; I'll go and lie down for half an hour." The door opened and Preston came in with a telegram. I opened it immediately and felt three or four flimsy sheets of Government paper in my hand. The telegram was in the special cipher of the _Evening Special_, and was from Rolston. * * * * * "The tower top is connected with Richmond telephone exchange by private wire. I have been rung up and in long conversation with Pu-Yi. Early in the evening you will receive a letter from certain lady. Owing to certain complication of circumstances your attempt at storming the tower and seeing lady must be carried out to-night. Our friend is making all possible arrangements to this end and urgently begs you to be prepared. He implicitly urges me to warn you the attempt is not without grave danger. Please return to 'Swan' at once. There is much to be arranged, and at lunch time two strange-looking customers were in the bar whose appearance I didn't like at all. Also Sliddim thinks he recognized one of them as an exceedingly dangerous person." * * * * *