“_One hundred thousand represents only a small portion of your possessions. You will pay this in notes to a messenger I will send in response to an advertisement in the ‘Tribune’ within the next twenty-four hours, stating the exact hour convenient to you. This is the final warning._” There was no signature. “Well?” Old Jim Beardmore looked up over his spectacles and his eyes were smiling. “The Crimson Circle!” gasped his son. Jim Beardmore laughed aloud at the concern in the boy’s voice. “Yes, the Crimson Circle--I have had four of ’em!” The young man stared at him. “Four?” he repeated. “Good heavens! Is that why Yale has been staying with us?” Jim Beardmore smiled. “That is a reason,” he said. “Of course, I knew that he was a detective, but I hadn’t the slightest idea----” “Don’t worry about this infernal circle,” interrupted his father a little impatiently. “I’m not scared of them. Froyant is in terror of his life that he will be marked down. And I don’t wonder. He and I have made a few enemies in our time.” James Beardmore, with his hard, lined face and his stubbly grey beard, might have been mistaken for the grandfather of the good-looking young man who sat opposite to him. The Beardmore fortune had been painfully won. It had materialised from the wreckage of dreams and had its beginnings in the privations, the dangers and the heartaches of a prospector’s life. This man whom Death had stalked on the waterless plains of the Kalahari, who had scraped in the mud of the Vale River for illusory diamonds, and thawed out his claim in the Klondyke, had faced too many real dangers to be greatly disturbed by the threat of the Crimson Circle. For the moment his perturbation was based on a more tangible peril, not to himself, but to his son. “I’ve got a whole lot of faith in your good sense, Jack,” he said, “so don’t be hurt by anything I’m going to say. I’ve never interfered in your amusements or questioned your judgment--but--do you think that you’re being wise just now?” Jack understood. “You mean about Miss Drummond, father?” The older man nodded. “She’s Froyant’s secretary,” began the youth. “I know she is Froyant’s secretary,” said the other, “and she’s none the worse for that. But the point is, Jack, do you know anything more about her?” The young man rolled his napkin deliberately. His face was red and there was a queer set look about his jaw which secretly amused Jim. “I like her. She is a friend of mine. I’ve never made love to her, if that is what you mean, dad, and I rather think our friendship would be at an end if I did.” Jim nodded. He had said all that was necessary and now he took up a more bulky envelope and looked at it curiously. Jack saw that it bore French postage stamps and wondered who was the correspondent. Tearing open the flap, the old man took out a pad of correspondence, which included yet another envelope heavily sealed. He read the superscription and his nose wrinkled.