"You can have the same room you had a little time ago," she said. "It is aired, for I always keep hot-water bottles in it in case it may be wanted. If you went home now, you wouldn’t get there till half-past eleven. Besides, it’s more cheerful for me. I’m beginning to hate this place now Mr. Boyne never comes near." "The inspector said he saw Mr. Boyne in King Street to-night," Marigold said. "Bosh! my dear," was old Mrs. Felmore’s prompt reply. "He wouldn’t be in King Street without coming home. It was somebody else he saw, no doubt." And that was exactly what Marigold herself thought. Soon after half-past ten, Mrs. Felmore put out the light, and they both went to bed. For half an hour Marigold lay awake thinking it all over, and thinking of the last occasion she had slept in that room, and of the mysterious chamber upstairs whence had issued those strange human cries. Then, at last, tired out, she dropped off to sleep. How long she slept she knew not, but suddenly she was awakened by men’s shouts, and next instant found the room full of smoke. There was a roaring noise outside. Half suffocated she groped her way to the door frantically, only to find the staircase above in flames. "Auntie! auntie!" she yelled, not recollecting that her aunt was deaf, but by dint of fierce courage she got to the old lady’s room. As she entered the door, Mrs. Felmore, half choking, met her in the red light thrown by the flames, and together they sprang down the staircase, along the hall, and, after fumbling with the chain upon the door, dashed out of the house to where a number of people, including three police constables, were awaiting the arrival of the fire brigade. Meanwhile the top floor of the house was burning fiercely, the flames going up through the roof for many feet, and as there was rather a high wind, the sparks were flying everywhere. Bernard Boyne’s long deal box had sent petrol about the room of mystery at the time to which it had been set, and already all evidence of what was contained there, and of the mysterious origin of the fire, had been obliterated. The insidious death-dealer had hoped to include Marigold and his housekeeper in that relentless plot to destroy all that might incriminate him. But he was mistaken. Marigold Ramsay, though in her night attire—and who had fainted in the arms of a constable—had escaped unscathed! *CHAPTER XXIV* *HARD PRESSED* When Céline Tènot and Henri Galtier so suddenly appeared outside Ena’s flat as the dark shadow of menace at the very moment of the diabolical triumph of the death-dealers, Bernard Boyne realised that, in order to escape, he would have to summon all his wits. The death of old Mr. Martin in Chiswick was an ugly affair—a very ugly affair—and Céline more than suspected—she knew that somehow by the old man’s death all three had profited.