Carver dropped the receiver as if it were red-hot and flew to the door. A cab had just set down some guests at the hotel and he pushed unceremoniously past them. “Peak Avenue,” he said. What a fool not to have thought of Mayfield before! He cursed volubly in the darkness of the taxi. And after he knew that Rex Lander had called Tab on the ’phone, and that Tab had gone out! Of course, that was where he would have taken Tab--to Mayfield. Tab would have gone cheerfully, having no suspicion of his friend, and--Carver shuddered. He had read only too clearly the significance of the torn photographs. The man was insanely jealous; would stop at nothing. With two murders to his credit, a third would be simple. Long before he reached Peak Avenue, he saw the red glow in the sky and groaned. Amidst that blazing hell Rex Lander had destroyed not only his rival but half the evidence of his crime. The cab dashed through the police line into the Avenue, crowded now with half-dressed inhabitants, and brightly lit by the flames that mounted above the doomed house. The roof fell in as he sprang from the cab; a crowd of sparks leapt into the dark sky and Carver could only stand speechless and sorrowful beyond expression. Then it was that somebody tapped his elbow, and looking round he saw a man in a soaked and bedraggled dressing-gown. At first he did not recognise him, for the little man’s face was blackened and scorched, his eyes were red and wild. “My father was a fireman,” said Mr. Stott solemnly. “We Stotts are a hard bit’n race. Heroes all of us!” Carver looked at the man aghast. Mr. Stott was very drunk! XXXV Eline Simpson with a large handkerchief tied round her face, turned on her bed and groaned. It was unfortunate for all concerned that Eline’s bedroom was immediately above that occupied by Mr. John Stott and his wife, although Eline’s groans had no serious effect upon that lady. Mr. Stott had reached the stage where he waited with agonized expectancy for the next boom of anguish; when it did not come he was frantic, when it finally shivered the walls of his room, he was maddened. Eline was an irregular groaner. “Eline goes tomorrow!” he roared, and even Mrs. Stott heard him. “She’s had her tooth out,” said Mrs. Stott sleepily. “Go upstairs and tell that girl to get up and walk about--no, no, not to walk about, to sit still.” “M’m,” said Mrs. Stott, and sighed happily. Mr. Stott glared at her and then came another groan from above. He got out of bed and into his dressing-gown--it was really a kimono--and trotted up the stairs. “Eline!” he called in a hushed intense voice, suitable to the hour and the occasion. “Yes, sir,” pathetically. “What the he-- why are you making such a--such a hullabaloo?” “Oh, my tooth does ache, sir!” she wailed jerkily. “Nonsense!” said Mr. Scott, “how can it ache when it is at the dentist’s? Don’t be a baby. Get up and take something, come downstairs, dress yourself decently,” he warned her.