"Understand this, Kirk," I said. "I've been fooled quite long enough. As my wife has been enticed away, and is held aloof in some unknown place, I give you full and ample warning of my intention. It is to go straight to the police, and while invoking their aid to try and find her, at the same time to tell them the whole story of the affair at Sussex Place, just as I know it." The man half turned from me and bit his thin under-lip. His grey, furrowed countenance had become even more grey and more determined, while in his eyes I saw an evil glitter. "Ah! You've been trying to seek solution of the mystery for yourself. I know all about that!" He laughed hollowly. "But, as you are aware of only half the tangled skein of mysterious facts, it is hardly likely that you'll succeed, do you think? Did I not tell you to remain silent and inactive? Instead of that, you've been chattering and trying to act the part of amateur detective. It was fatal. Because of that--and for that reason alone--the misfortune has been placed upon you." "What misfortune?" "The loss of your wife. It has occupied your mind in another way, just as it was intended by your enemies it should do." "And yours is the master mind, Mr. Kirk, which has planned this subtle revenge," I exclaimed, my eager hands clenched in frantic desperation. "Because I disobeyed your extraordinary injunctions Mabel has been taken from me. You may as well admit the whole truth now at once." "I admit nothing," he answered, drawing himself up defiantly. "Then, by Heaven, I'll force you to speak--to tell me where she is!" I shouted, as I raised my hands with a sudden movement. And then, before he could ward me off, my fingers closed upon his hard, bony throat. I was desperate. Nay, in the presence of that sphinx-like, taciturn adventurer whom I now knew to be my enemy, I was mad. Yes, mad, or surely I would never have dared to lay hands upon him. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. DEFIANCE PROVES DEFENCE. I had, I confess, allowed my anger to rise above my gorge. That action of mine in attacking Kirk was both ill-timed and very injudicious, for in an instant--before even those frantic words had left my lips--I found myself looking down the ugly black barrel of a big Browning revolver, that most effective and deadly of all man-killing weapons. "Kindly release me, Holford," he said, rather hoarsely and with some difficulty, as my muscular fingers had closed upon his scraggy throat. "Come, this is all very foolish! Let me go! I have no desire to harm you," he added, quite calmly. "Then tell me where I can find my wife," I repeated. "I would--if I could." "Tell me who can!" I demanded fiercely, my fingers still closed upon his throat, so that he breathed only with great difficulty. "Give me time--time to make--inquiry!" he gasped. "I've only just returned, and am in ignorance of a great deal of what has transpired."