It is needless to state Norton did not scoop his rivals on the counterfeit story. But he set to work exploring the cellar of the gutted building, and in one corner he found a battered die. He turned this over to the secret service men. There was one man he wanted to find--Vroon. This man, could he find him, should be made to lead him, Norton, to the new stronghold. He saw the futility of trying to trap Braine by shadowing him. He desired Braine to believe that his escape from the freighter had been a bit of wild luck and not a preconceived plan. Braine was out of reach for the present, so he began to search for the man Vroon. He haunted the water front saloons for a week without success. He did not know that it was the policy of the Black Hundred to lay low for a month after a raid of such a serious character. So the Hargreave menage had thirty days of peace; always watched, however. For Braine never relaxed his vigilance in that part of the game. He did not care to lose sight of Jones, who he was positive was ready for flight if the slightest opportunity offered itself. Norton went back to the primrose paths of love; and sometimes he would forget all about such a thing as the Black Hundred. So the summer days went by, with the lilacs and the roses embowering the Hargreave home. But Norton took note of the fact that Florence was no longer the light-hearted schoolgirl he had first met. Her trials had made a serious woman of her, and perhaps this phase was all the more enchanting to him, who had his serious side also. Her young mind was like an Italian garden, always opening new vistas for his admiring gaze. He went about his work the same as of old, interviewing, playing detective, fattening his pay envelope by specials to the Sunday edition and some of the lighter magazines. Sometimes he had vague dreams of writing a play, a novel, and making a tremendous fortune like that chap Manders, who only a few years ago had been his desk mate. He really began the first chapter of a novel; but that has nothing to do with this history. All ready, then. The chess are once more on the board, and it is the move of the Black Hundred. The day was rather cloudy. Jones viewed the sky wearily. He could hear Florence playing rather a cheerless nocturne by Chopin. Fourteen weeks ago this warfare had begun, and all he had accomplished, he and those with him, was the death or incarceration of a few inconsequent members of the Black Hundred. Always they struck and always he had to ward off. He had always been on the defensive; and a defensive fighter may last a long while, but he seldom wins; and the butler knew that they must win or go down in bitter defeat. There was no half-way route to the end; there could be no draw. It all reminded him of thunderbolts; one man knew where they were going to strike. The telephone rang; at the same moment Florence left the piano. She stopped at the threshold.