He scarcely knew he sang, but the vibrant tenor, lifting across the scent of the wistaria, came clearly to the girl at the piano. For a moment Barbara's fingers played on, as she listened with a strained wonder. Then the music ceased with a discord and she came quickly through the opened window. The song was smitten from Daunt's lips. In the instant that she stood outlined on the broad piazza, a fierce snarling yelp and a clatter came from within the house and there rang out a screamed Japanese warning. An outer door flew open and the huge figure of Doctor Bersonin ran out, pursued by a leaping white shadow, while the air thrilled to the savage cry of a hound, shaken with rage. "_Run, Barbara!_" The Ambassador's voice came from the doorway. But the white, moonlit figure, in its gauzy evening gown, turned too late. Empty-handed, Daunt dashed for the piazza, as, with a crash, a heavy porch chair, hurled by a Japanese house-boy, penned the animal for an instant in a corner. He caught the white figure up in his arms, sprang into the shade of the wistaria arbor, and set her feet on its high railing. The voice from the doorway called again, sharply. "This way, Doctor! _Quick!_" The wolf-hound, trailing its broken chain, had leaped the barrier and was launched straight at the crouching expert. The latter had dragged something small and square from his pocket and he seemed now to hold this out before him. Daunt, wrenching a cleat from the arbor railing, felt a puff of cold wind strike his face, and something like an elfin note of music, high and thin as an insect's, drifted across the confusion. He rushed forward with his improvised weapon--then stopped short. The dog was no longer there. The Ambassador made an exclamation. He stepped down and peered under the piazza; even in the dim light the long space was palpably empty. The head-boy spoke rapidly in Japanese and pointed toward the gate. "He says he must have jumped down this side," explained Daunt, "and run out to the street. He's nowhere in the garden, at any rate. We can see every inch. How surprising!" He spoke to the boy in the vernacular. "He will have the gates closed at once and telephone a warning to the police station." Bersonin had sat down on the edge of the piazza. He was crouched far over; his big frame was shaken with violent shudderings. Suddenly his head went back and he began to laugh--a jarring, grating, weird man-hysteria that seemed to burst suddenly beyond his control. The Ambassador went to him hurriedly, but Bersonin shook off the hand on his shoulder and rising, still emitting his dreadful laughter, staggered across the lawn and out of the gate. The appalling mirth reëchoed from far down the quiet road. CHAPTER IX THE WEB OF THE SPIDER Bersonin walked on, fighting desperately with his ghastly spasm of merriment.