"Oh, it was chance that showed Mrs. Jarsell's complicity on that occasion, my dear," said Dan, modestly; "but that we went into that animated picture entertainment, we should never have known she was at Blackheath. I suppose Miss Armour did not feel equal to committing that particular crime, so sent Mrs. Jarsell to carry out the job." "Miss Armour was never really paralyzed, I suppose?" "No. She pretended to be when anyone paid a visit. Nor do I believe that either she or Mrs. Jarsell were so old as they pretended to be. What a queer thing human nature is," went on Dan, thoughtfully; "here was Miss Armour, who could have lived a very pleasant and comfortable life, plunging herself and that miserable woman into dangerous crime just for the love of power. One would have thought that she would have liked to show her power publicly, but she was quite content to be a secret despot. I suppose it gave her a certain amount of pleasure, though it is hard for a simple person like I am to see where it came in." "But her power could not have been exercised amidst public applause, Dan, seeing what it meant." "Quite so. The police would soon have ended her career had her infernal sway been known." "Do you think," asked Lillian, after a pause, "that the members of the society expected that explosion?" "No," answered Halliday, very promptly. "I do not, else, in spite of the danger, I believe the half, if not the whole, of them would have run out even into the arms of the police to be hanged in due course. But they seemed to have an enormous belief in Queen Beelzebub, who was undoubtedly as clever as her father the devil. The members expected that in some way she would manage to save them. But all the time--as I guessed, although I could not understand what she was aiming at--she was preparing some way of getting rid of the lot, herself included. She must have summoned them to a pretended conference so as to house all under one roof and then fire the mine. I expect she filled the cellars of _The Grange_ ages ago with dynamite, and arranged with Mrs. Jarsell to explode the mine. Of course, where Mrs. Jarsell got the better of Queen Beelzebub was that she did not give her the pleasure of revenging herself on me, and fired the dynamite unexpectedly. While Miss Armour and her demons were thinking how to torture me, they all went--well, we won't say where they went. But there wasn't enough left of them to form a single human being." "And there is an immense hole in the ground where The Grange stood," said Lillian, with awe; "Mr. Laurance told me, and Mildred also." "I daresay that hole will form the basis of a legend in years to come," was Dan's reply, "and a very picturesque story can be made out of the material supplied by that infernal woman. She was as wicked and cruel and callous as that Ezzelin who played dice with the arch-fiend. By the way, Lillian, I suppose Mildred Vincent was very much cut up over the death of her uncle."