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"So the affair as it stands is a complete enigma!"

It was the Baron who spoke. The elegant, brown-bearded, rather sallow-faced Frenchman glanced around at the nine persons sitting at a large, round table in a private room with locked doors at the Café de L'Univers, an unpretentious little place, in the Rue St. Antoine, in Paris.

Upon the table were coffee and liqueurs, for the usual monthly dinner of the Crimes Club was being held, and one of its members, Monsieur Lucien Dubosq, a slim, dark-eyed, bearded, elegant man, who was Chef de la Sûreté, had just related an extraordinary story.

The others had listened intently, and the Baron had made the remark when Dubosq had finished.

The assembly was a curious one.

The membership of the club, formed for the study of the psychology of crime, was confined to ten, and that night all were present. They were Professor Ernest Lemelletier, grave, lantern-jawed, with iron-grey hair and moustache, who was the most eminent medico-legist in France, and who, it will be recollected, distinguished himself in the Landru case; Dr. Henri Plaud, an upright, sparse man of seventy with white hair and beard, who was a well-known toxicologist and Senator of Vaucluse; Maître Jean Tessier, a dark-eyed, round-faced man, who, though not yet of middle-age, had already distinguished himself as a lawyer and Deputy for the Yonne; Maurice Jacquinot, a slim, rather effeminate, fair-haired journalist, whose speciality was the investigation of crime mysteries for the great Paris newspaper Le Journal; the Baron Edouard d'Antenac, a podgy, over-fed man-about-town, who had spoken; M. Gustave Delcros, a wizened little man, who had been Minister of Marine in the Briand Cabinet; a fair-haired, clean-shaven English inventor of wireless television, named Gordon Latimer; and two ladies, one a pretty, dark-haired Parisienne of twenty-two, Mademoiselle Fernande Buysse, who followed the profession of lady journalist; and a stout, rather handsome woman of forty-five, Madame Léontine Van Hecke, who acted as secretary to the club which, however, had no president--all members being equal.

The Crimes Club was a secret organization to which no outsider was ever admitted under any pretext, while its proceedings were never mentioned in the newspapers.

Besides studying crime, its unique purpose was to assist the police of France, or of any other country, to unravel the mysteries that baffled them. In certain bewildering cases the club had met with marked success, but the one which the Chief of the Paris detective police had placed before them for their consideration was, as the Baron had remarked, a complete enigma, which they began at once to discuss in detail.

Briefly put, the French police had been approached by the Swiss police at Berne for help in a mysterious case that had occurred in the Bernese Oberland, near the foot of the Jungfrau. A young clerk named Frank MacBean, engaged in the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh, had gone to Switzerland for his summer holiday and had stayed at Interlaken, where his fiancée, a Swiss girl, Mariette Raeber, lived. Naturally, they went for excursions together up to Grindelwald, along by the lakes to Brienz, Thun, and other places, when one day they went off together by train up the dark, magnificent valley to Lauterbrunnen. There they changed trains, and ascended to the Jungfrau, where they spent the day. According to the Swiss girl's story, when they descended again in the evening to take the train back to Interlaken, he left her in the train at Scheidegg to go and take a photograph, saying that he would return in a few moments.

She waited until, without warning, the train went off. She tried to get out, but dare not jump, so she was taken down to Lauterbrunnen. There she awaited her fiancé until the last train; but he did not arrive. So she returned to Interlaken alone. She never saw him again, for he vanished, and every effort to trace him had failed.

"What about the books at the bank?" asked the lawyer Tessier.

"Examination has been made, and all accounts are in order," replied the Chief of Police. "He was known to have upon him only two fifty-franc Swiss notes, a few centimes, and a gold signet-ring. That was all. His camera was found in a wood near the road, about a mile down the Lütschine, a broad and swift mountain torrent."

"Deep?" asked the shrewd journalist, Jacquinot, greatly interested.

"No; shallow, but very swift. It runs over small boulders--glacier water from the Eiger Mountain," was Dubosq's reply.

A discussion followed, in which each of the ten gave his or her opinion, the general feeling being that the young man, having grown tired of the girl, had simply disappeared. The police of Europe daily receive hundreds of reports of friends who have disappeared, but in most cases the effacement is intentional, husbands leaving wives, and vice versa.

The Baron's views differed from those of the others.

"If the pair were in love with each other, why should the young fellow disappear?" he queried. "It might be accident, or foul play. I suspect the latter; and I, for one, will go to Switzerland," said the stout, over-fed man, who was an expert in criminal investigation.

"I will go with you," volunteered Jacquinot, who, as a journalist, saw a great story in the affair.

"I also will go," said the pretty young lady journalist, Fernande Buysse. "I want to question the Swiss girl, for I have a theory."

When an investigation was undertaken by the Crimes Club it was left to the two or three volunteers to carry it out, while the others were at all times ready to assist, either in making inquiries or watching suspected persons.

Therefore a week later the adventurous trio arrived at the Hôtel du Lac, in Interlaken, as ordinary visitors, without disclosing to anybody the object of their visit. They found the local police and newspaper correspondents busy and intense excitement in the town regarding the young Scotsman's disappearance. He had been staying at the Hôtel du Lac, the most popular hotel in the Bernese Oberland, therefore on the day following their arrival, the Baron made some casual inquiries of the genial proprietor, Mr. Walter Haller--Herr Walter as he is called by his English guests.

"It was simply an accident," said the latter. "When he did not return I telephoned to the Jungfraujoch, the upper end of the mountain railway, and with the aid of the railway officials we traced him down as far as Wengen. He had left the train at Scheidegg and started to walk down the Wengernalp, and to those in a small inn which he passed his manner seemed very peculiar. The theory held by our police and by the lawyer engaged in the affair is that in crossing a little bridge over the Lütschine, not far from Lauterbrunnen, he stumbled in the dark and fell into the roaring torrent. Among the boulders he soon became battered, and his body was carried down to the Lake of Brienz, where among the boulders at the estuary--which are ever shifting on account of the strong currents--his remains are still held down in the bed of the lake. The same thing happened to a peasant of Lauterbrunnen a few years ago."

"Then you think that it was an accident?" asked the Baron.

"Everyone is agreed," replied the courtly hôtelier. "Of course, I know nothing about the investigation of crime, but that is the general opinion."

After dinner the stout, bullet-headed Baron d'Antenac, with the alert Jacquinot and Mademoiselle, strolled out along the principal boulevard, the Höheweg, where one side is lined by colossal hotels, while the other lies open to the giant snow-capped mountain, the Jungfrau, which raised its lofty, white crest in the bright moonlight.

As they walked towards the gay Kursaal all three were agreed that accident was out of the question. It was either a case of self-effacement or of foul play. Mademoiselle was certain of the latter. As usual they were working independently of the police and, concealing their identity, worked upon novel and entirely different lines.

On that day, as a matter of fact, the English inventor, Gordon Latimer, whose services the Baron had invoked, was in Edinburgh making secret inquiries regarding the missing man.

Mademoiselle Fernande, ever chic and dressed in the latest mode, kept her theory to herself, and resorted to a clever ruse. She discovered that MacBean's fiancée had been a governess in a family living in Findhorn Place, in Edinburgh, where he had met her. Therefore, she called at the house of the girl's mother in the Bahnhof Strasse, and under pretext of having also been a governess in Edinburgh, had an interview with her.

As they sat together in the small, but cosily-furnished room which looked out over the broad, fertile meadows of the valley towards the Lake of Thun, she apologised for calling, and said in French, which Fräulein Raeber understood:

"I have read in the papers of the unfortunate disappearance of your friend, Mr. MacBean. He was my own friend, as well as yours. I often saw him before you met him, and I knew afterwards that he loved you."

The girl looked straight at her visitor. At first she waxed indignant, but next moment the tone of Mademoiselle's voice softened her.

"Yes," she said. "He told me he loved me--and I believed him."

"And you still believe that what he told you was really true?" asked Mademoiselle with a strange look.

"Yes," she said, after a slight hesitation.

"Ah! You are not quite sure," exclaimed the young French girl. "It is well that it is so, because--well, now that he is dead I will reveal the truth to you--much as it must pain you. He was engaged to marry me!"

"You?" shrieked the fair-haired Swiss girl excitedly. "You? You lie! He loved me--and was to marry me in October."

"And he was to marry me in that same month," Mademoiselle said, quite calmly.

"But he will not. He'll marry----" and she broke off short. "I mean he cannot, because he is dead."

Mademoiselle Fernande fixed her dark eyes upon the girl. Her ruse was succeeding.

"Are you quite certain that poor Frank is dead?" she asked.

"Absolutely. It is now twelve days since he left me at Scheidegg. No doubt he fell into the torrent and his body was carried away to the lake during the night," she replied brokenly. "If he lived, he would certainly return to me."

"There is a suspicion that you had quarrelled," Mademoiselle said.

The girl gave her a swift look of antagonism.

"We did not--we have never quarrelled," she protested strongly.

"Why are you so certain that Mr. MacBean met with an accident?" asked Mademoiselle Fernande. "Might not his death be due to foul play?"

"He had no enemies. Besides, he had nothing upon him of value."

"His camera was found in the wood quite a long way from the torrent," Fernande pointed out, a fact which the Swiss police had not overlooked, even though they had arrived at the conclusion that the young Scotsman had met with an accident.

"He may have passed through the wood before he reached the torrent," the girl Raeber replied.

"It is hardly likely he would discard it--eh?" Mademoiselle argued.

Half an hour later, when she rejoined her companions at the Hôtel du Lac, she described her interview with the bereaved fiancée, and added:

"That girl knows more about the affair than she will admit. She made a slip which she quickly corrected. The missing man is alive. Whether he has disappeared intentionally, or whether he is held in the hands of his enemies is a point we must investigate and establish."

"In that case we will continue to carry out the inquiry independently, and in our own way," said Jacquinot. "Let us begin by going over the same ground as the missing man, and continue to the spot where he was last seen."

"Excellent," said the Baron. "We'll go to-morrow by rail to the Jungfraujoch and follow the way he took."

Early next morning the three left Interlaken, the train taking them beside the roaring torrent up the wild, dark valley to Lauterbrunnen, where they changed carriages into the mountain railway, which climbed up the Wengernalp through the little Alpine resort of Wengen, up to Scheidegg on the plateau, and thence by the most wonderful railway in the world, that which runs to the region of eternal snow two thousand feet below the summit of the Jungfrau.

The experience of looking out upon the wide snowy slopes, the great green glaciers with their yawning crevasses in the ice, and the stupendous view of the mountain peaks beyond was most enjoyable. But it carried them no further towards the solution of the problem.

The conclusion formed by Fernande was not, however, shared by the others. The Baron now accepted the theory of the police, that the disappearance had been accidental, while Jacquinot, a thin-faced young man with a keen sense of humour, was of opinion that he and the girl had quarrelled, and that he had simply returned to Scotland.

On leaving the train at Scheidegg the three walked down the steep mountain path to Wengen with wonderful views on either side, and then, still down, to Lauterbrunnen, where they took the winding road beside the foaming waters of the Lütschine torrent to the dark pine-wood where the camera had been found.

They spent nearly two hours searching that part of the wood, but discovered nothing which might lead to any clue except that not far from where the camera had been found the Baron picked up the end of a cigarette. Upon it was the mark of a well-known English brand, from which it would appear that young MacBean had halted there and smoked, and then, when moving on, forgot his camera. But, as Maurice Jacquinot pointed out, that particular brand of English cigarette was sold in a number of shops in Interlaken, therefore it was no proof that an Englishman had been there.

They walked back to the road which led to Interlaken, past a little inn where, late at night, the young man was said to have been seen to pass, and came to the narrow bridge where it was believed that he had slipped over in the darkness into the boiling torrent below.

"Nothing will convince me that he is dead!" declared Mademoiselle, as she walked between the two men.

"Then you will have to prove that he is alive," remarked the Baron. "But how?"

"We must first establish a motive for his disappearance," replied the shrewd young Frenchwoman. "Having done that, we must follow it up by close investigation. The police at first suspected murder, but now believe it to be accidental. I don't agree with either theory."

"Well, what can the motive have been, except, perhaps, he and the girl had words, and in order to punish her he has pretended suicide?"

"Not at all," declared Jacquinot. "If he had pretended suicide he would have left his hat and coat, or something, on the river bank. But nothing was found except his camera. It certainly is not a case of pretended suicide."

"Then what is it?" demanded the girl.

"It is for us to unravel the mystery."

They had walked through the dark, mysterious valley to the village of Zweilütschinen, and thence took train back to Interlaken, with its two great lakes surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Meanwhile the fourth member of the Crimes Club, the young inventor Latimer, was in Edinburgh pursuing his investigations. Quietly and methodically he was delving into the past of MacBean, whom everyone had regarded as a young man of exemplary conduct. The manager of the bank, while deploring the young fellow's death, made it plain that he was honourable, moral, and thrifty, for he had in the bank savings to the extent of over six hundred pounds. His father, a retired naval captain, and his mother, who lived at Queensferry, spoke of their missing son in the highest terms. Indeed, Latimer, after nearly a fortnight, was about to give up the case and return to Paris when the affair took a most unexpected and sensational turn.

Latimer called upon Captain MacBean one morning to wish him good-bye, when he found him in a state of great agitation and excitement.

"I--I've received this by post this morning!" he gasped. "Look!" He placed upon the table a small, stout wooden box about five inches long, two inches wide, and three inches deep, which he opened.

Latimer gave vent to a loud exclamation of horror when he saw what it contained--a dark, shrivelled human finger, severed at the base, and bearing a man's gold signet-ring!

"It is my son's!" cried the distressed father, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I gave him the ring on his last birthday. My wife is away in Glasgow. I--I dare not tell her. It would kill her!"

By this an entirely different complexion was placed upon the affair. What did it portend?

"This has been sent to you, Captain MacBean, as some sign. Do you recognise what it means?" asked Latimer.

"It can only mean one thing--that he is dead! And yet, he had no enemy in the world to my knowledge."

"The sign certainly seems to portend that your poor son has met with foul play."

Then, after a pause, the young radio-inventor said:

"I wonder if you would allow me to have possession of it for a week. I want to make some further investigation."

"Certainly," was the father's reply. "Take the terrible thing! It is too horrible and ghastly for me to have in my possession. Take it and destroy it; who can have sent it, I wonder?"

"That, I and my friends will endeavour to discover. For that reason I want it."

So that same afternoon Gordon Latimer left the Waverley Station in Edinburgh direct for Switzerland, bearing the tiny box with its gruesome contents.

Two days later he joined the trio at Interlaken, where in secret, he exhibited the contents of the anonymous little box. All there were aghast at the sight of the shrivelled finger, with the heavy gold signet-ring engraved with the crest of the MacBeans. But the paper wrapping around the box was of greater interest. They examined it minutely. The box had apparently been posted in Switzerland, but the postmark was blurred. The handwriting of the address was typically English, a woman's bold handwriting, full of character.

The Baron took the wrappings to an official in the Interlaken post-office who at once deciphered the postmark to be that of the town of Thun, at the opposite end of the lake.

Was it possible that the murderers of young MacBean lived in that town?

Later, when the four members of the Club were discussing the gruesome object, the journalist, Jacquinot, remarked:

"I wonder why it has been sent to the dead man's father? It is some sign which possibly he recognises, but will not reveal. Perhaps an enemy of his has killed his son, and he sends that ghastly object to prove that he had had his revenge, well knowing that MacBean dare not accuse him, lest he should make some damning revelation."

"The father is greatly distressed. He is not going to tell his wife," Latimer remarked.

"Ah, for some obvious reason!" exclaimed Mademoiselle Fernande.

Again they examined the severed finger. Doubt was expressed whether it was actually that of Frank MacBean, but it was noticed that the ring, fitting tightly, had caused quite a ridge in the flesh.

"Ugh! It's horrible!" Fernande declared, as she touched it. "The work of either someone with a fiendish revenge, or it is actually a terrible sign to MacBean's father which he recognises and fears to acknowledge."

"You think that some enemy of the young man's father has killed the son?" asked the Baron of Mademoiselle.

"My theory remains the same--that clearly MacBean is still alive, held prisoner somewhere with some motive that we fail to establish." Then she added: "We are not very brilliant members of the Club, are we? Plaud and Lemelletier will sneer at us. So will Dubosq."

"I had a letter from the latter four days ago," said Latimer. "He asked me to see Sandy Mackay of the Edinburgh police upon another matter--an insurance fraud. I did so, and reported to him."

Next day another idea occurred to Mademoiselle Fernande. Taking the little box, she called upon the girl Raeber and showed her its gruesome contents.

"Why--that is his ring--his finger! Ugh!" she gasped breathlessly, staring at it in horror. "Where did you get it?"

Mademoiselle told her, whereupon she reeled and fell fainting.

Fernande was puzzled. The effect which sight of it had upon the girl was unexpected, for it did not fall in with the theory she held.

When, after a short time, the girl recovered, she asked again to see the ring which she examined closely. Then, quite calmly, she said:

"Yes. It is most mysterious! It has evidently been sent anonymously to his father as proof of his death and mutilation. Who, I wonder, was his enemy?"

"That is what my friends are endeavouring to discover. Have you any suspicion--the slightest suspicion which might furnish us with a clue?" asked the pretty French girl.

"No. I have no knowledge of any enemy," was Mariette Raeber's reply, but she spoke in a tone which filled her questioner with considerable suspicion.

After a month, a fourth meeting of the Crimes Club was held at their headquarters in Paris at which all the members were present. After dinner the doors were locked, and the Baron reported upon the Mountain Mystery, as the newspapers called it.

Having related the details already here described, he took up the wrappings which were around the box, and said:

"There is much mystery surrounding this package. We have, by dint of analysis and with the aid of experts in paper-making, established the fact that this piece of paper is English, not Swiss. The string is English, made by a firm at Oldham, and, further, the box itself was impregnated with some deadly, but subtle drug, for a few hours after the missing man's father received it and opened it, he was seized by a sudden and mysterious illness which the doctors believed to be due to acute poisoning. For a fortnight he lay hovering between life and death, and is only just now out of danger. Again, while I myself was handling the box soon after it was brought to us, I was seized by a curious feeling, and almost collapsed. Therefore, it is evident that whoever sent this box to Captain MacBean intended to wreak some terrible revenge, by bringing death upon him by a most secret and devilish method. Therefore, if the young man has met with foul play, it is at the hands of enemies of his father. They sent the severed finger as proof of their triumph. That, ladies and gentlemen, is as far as we have been able to proceed up to the present."

A long and critical discussion followed, each point being dealt with by experts. Professor Lemelletier told the club that the amputation of the finger had been done by a skilled hand. Dr. Henri Plaud dealt with the theory of poison upon the box, and described two deadly substances that might have been used, but which would be harmless to anyone unless they had abrasions on their fingers, while Maître Tessier, the great lawyer, discussed the various motives which might have induced Captain MacBean's enemies to seize and murder his son.

The Baron further pointed out that while the packet might have been posted from the little town of Thun and bore Swiss stamps, it was a curious fact that the Captain was surcharged eightpence from the West Central district office in London.

"The question arises whether the packet was posted in Switzerland, or whether in London. The Thun postmark is simply a smudge, although a Swiss postal official recognised it as the obliterating mark of Thun," he went on. "We have to remember, too, that though the box is of German make, yet the wrappings and string are English, hence it seems possible that the box was posted in London, without pre-payment. You ask how that could be done? Easily. The box is sufficiently small to be dropped into any of the large post boxes at the chief offices, and would then be conveyed as a letter and surcharged."

This theory was accepted in place of any better one and, after a consultation lasting until two o'clock in the morning, it was decided to continue the investigations and unravel the mystery.

The Swiss police, in ignorance of the mystery of the signet-ring about which Captain MacBean had said nothing to anybody, because of his wife's mental condition, had long ago dismissed the affair as a fatal accident as, indeed, had everyone in the Bernese Oberland. The Crimes Club were, however, far from satisfied. Their habit was to take up cases which had baffled the police who, in turn, had set the public mind at rest.

To obtain any further clue of value in the case in question seemed an utterly forlorn hope. Maurice Jacquinot, the journalist, who had become quite well known in Interlaken, returned there, and again putting up at the Hôtel du Lac, set about watching Mariette Raeber. As his assistant he employed a young Swiss named Stutz, who kept an ever-watchful eye upon the girl's movements. But there was nothing suspicious about them, though her altitude was not that of a girl sorrowing for her lover. Indeed, she was seen at the Casino and at several local dances, where she apparently enjoyed herself.

Suddenly the affair assumed yet another and astounding phase. Mariette Raeber was missing from her home.

Her mother reported that she had gone out about one o'clock one day to meet a girl friend of hers named Rochs and go by the steamer up the Lake of Thun. But she had not returned. The girl Rochs declared that the appointment was only a pretence, as she had never promised to meet her. The crew of the lake steamer recollected her on board alone, but she had left at a little lake-side village called Gunten, a popular resort of the people of Thun. With what object?

The Swiss police ascertained that in the shady garden of the hotel which adjoins the landing-stage, she had sat for some ten minutes, until a car arrived and she joined a round-faced man of forty, who drove her off. That was the last seen or heard of her. The affair was now a complete mystery.

A special meeting of the Crimes Club was held in Paris when the whole puzzle was reviewed, and, further, a decision was arrived at.

A week after Mariette's disappearance, her mother received a typewritten message posted in Brussels and bearing no signature, as follows:

"To search for Mariette is useless. She will not be found until the mystery of Frank MacBean's death is solved."

The mother in great distress showed it to Fernande, who had again returned to Interlaken for a few days, and afterwards gave it over to the Swiss police. As soon as this message was known, the Baron d'Antenac took train from Paris to Brussels, the doctor, Plaud, accompanying him. There they held consultation with the Brussels police, who, in turn, strove to discover the missing girl, all, however, to no purpose. Meanwhile, Dubosq, the Chef de la Sûreté of Paris, ordered inquiries to be made all over France regarding her, just as he had done in the case of young MacBean.

The problem was rendered the more inscrutable by the news which Gordon Latimer received from Captain MacBean to the effect that a mysterious explosion had occurred at night in his house, which afterwards had taken fire, he having had a very narrow escape from death. It was, no doubt, a case of incendiarism. A second attempt had been made upon the life of the father of the missing man.

This caused the Crimes Club to redouble its efforts to solve the mystery, which had become a complete enigma with many ramifications. Jacquinot and Fernande returned from Interlaken, and the only member of the club absent from Paris was Maître Jean Tessier.

No further development occurred until nearly six weeks later. Lemelletier, pale and rather impatient, was one day shown into the private room of Monsieur Dubosq, at the Prefecture of Police in Paris. The dark-bearded Chef de la Sûreté greeted him warmly, but when he read a brief letter which the Professor handed him, he sat speechless and open-mouthed, in surprise.

"Excellent!" he exclaimed when he had recovered from his astonishment. "To-day is Thursday. We must act at once." And he glanced hurriedly at his watch. Then he took up his telephone and asked to be put on to the Prefect of Police at Boulogne-sur-Mer.

A few moments later his bell rang, and he gave some hurried instructions.

"Now we must await events," he remarked to the Professor. "The club should meet to-morrow night, if it can be arranged."

"I will see that the meeting is called," replied the other. "We will all be present." And he walked out, smiling with self-satisfaction.

On the following night at the large round table in the private room in the Café de l'Univers there assembled the secret council of ten. Dinner was over, and only coffee and liqueurs remained on the table when Dubosq rose, and said:

"I have to announce that, having received information from a certain member of the club, I have caused the arrest of two Chinese named Wou-fang and Le-K'an, on their arrival at Boulogne from Switzerland in connection with the Interlaken mystery. Those members engaged upon the independent inquiries held divers theories, one being that the girl Raeber knew more of her lover's disappearance than she cared to tell. For that reason our fellow-member, Maître Tessier, succeeded in enticing her from her home to Brussels, by means of a message purporting to come from young MacBean. At Brussels she was given comfortable quarters, but was made to understand that she would be held in bondage there until she revealed all she knew concerning her lover's disappearance. For weeks she remained obdurate, apparently fearing lest she might bring trouble upon him, though it was plain that she knew the truth. The Baron, Maître Tessier, Mademoiselle Fernande, and our friend Jacquinot, all interviewed her--Mademoiselle Fernande being her companion in her imprisonment--but she refused to say a word, until at last, she was told of the two dastardly attempts upon Captain MacBean's life. Then her lips became unsealed." He paused briefly, and, looking around the table, added: "I will now produce Mademoiselle Raeber and her lover, and they shall tell you their remarkable stories."

Jacquinot, at a sign from him, rose and unlocked the door. It was a dramatic moment when he conducted the pair to two chairs which Tessier drew forward for them.

Both were well dressed, but pale, wan and nervous.

Dubosq's first words were congratulatory, whereupon MacBean thanked them all for their untiring efforts on his behalf.

"I was the victim of a cunning plot formed by the enemies of my father for purposes of revenge," he said, in a rather low voice. "When I left the train at Scheidegg to take a photograph, I walked behind the station to obtain a view of the Eiger Mountain. A man who had travelled down from the Jungfrau with us also got out with his camera and began to chat about photography. In the meantime the train went off with Mariette. He was annoyed, as I was, that we had lost the train, but we started to walk down to Wengen, for we had an hour to wait for the next train. My companion was a charming, much travelled man, and at an hotel near the station at Wengen we had a drink together, when he suggested that we should walk still farther, right down to Lauterbrunnen, where we could take the train to Interlaken. I recollect arriving at Lauterbrunnen station, where in a state of collapse, owing to some drug in the drink, I believe, I had to be assisted into a closed car that was waiting, and after that I knew no more until consciousness slowly returned, and I found myself in a small châlet on the side of a mountain, with the window and door securely fastened. My gaolers were two evil-looking Chinese who, though they treated me kindly, pretended not to understand any language but their own.

"I quickly realised that I had fallen into a trap. I at once feared Mariette would believe that I had committed suicide, because of a foolish story I had told her two days before in order to test her love for me--a fictitious story that I had embezzled a large sum of money at the bank, and asked her what I should do if it were discovered. She had believed me. I grew frantic at thoughts of her agony of mind, and because of the close confinement, but I managed at length to send a note to her through a young goatherd who frequently passed the house, telling her of my whereabouts. Naturally, she pretended to assume that I was dead, in order to prevent any search being made for me. My captors had taken good care to leave my camera in the wood, so that it would point to either accident or suicide. As the long days passed my utter loneliness nearly drove me mad, for I had only a dog as companion and no exercise was allowed me. My small window looked up out upon a pasture where cows grazed, and beyond was a distant mountain. The motive of my capture was a complete puzzle until the elder of the Chinese, Wou-fang, told me that a powerful secret society of Canton, the sign of which is a golden grasshopper, and which had many murders to its discredit, had sworn to be revenged upon my father because, while in command of a gunboat during an insurrection, he had ordered the bombardment of a small town inhabited by Chinese. They had sent word to my father that I had fallen captive at their hands, and that they would submit me to all the terrible tortures known to the Chinese if he refused to make ample recompense to those injured by the gun-fire.

"Naturally, my father did not take it seriously, fully believing the police theory that I had fallen into the torrent. But when they took my ring from my finger and sent it to him upon a dead finger obtained from a hospital student who had it for dissection, he realised the extreme seriousness of the affair, and that the two agents of the Golden Grasshopper were intent on taking his life, as well as mine.

"Thanks to Mariette and to you all, I have been saved from the hideous tortures and ignominious end in store for me," he added. "She herself will tell you what occurred."

Rather shyly, the pretty, fair-haired Swiss girl said in her faulty French:

"All along I believed Frank to be a thief, as he foolishly told me he was. Therefore I did all I could to support the theory of accidental death, even when I was shown the severed finger. One day I received a message purporting to come from him, telling me to meet a friend of his at Gunten, who would accompany me to him as he wanted to see me in secret. Judge my surprise when I found myself captive in the hands of three women at a house outside Brussels. The man who met me was, I now know, Maître Jean Tessier; the plot was one formed by him in order to worm from me where my lover was concealed. Many days went by, and I remained mute until I was told of the two attempts made upon the life of Frank's father, and how, if I divulged the secret, I should be the means of the culprit's punishment. So, somewhat reluctantly, I told all I knew, with the result that I was released. Frank was found in a lonely house on the mountainside near Grindelwald and released, while the two Chinamen fled towards London, being, however, arrested at Boulogne."

Champagne was soon afterwards brought, and the Council of Ten filled their glasses and drank to the future happiness of the young couple, the evening ending with great enthusiasm and conviviality.

Three months later Mariette was married to Frank in Edinburgh, where in the same week in the same city the two narrow-eyed Celestials were each sentenced to ten years' penal servitude for the attempted murder of Captain MacBean.

Thus ended the activity in Europe of the agents of The Golden Grasshopper.