The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

As Carrington went off jingling a bunch of keys in his hand, Jack could feel the man whom we will now call Seymour fairly trembling with excitement. It seemed more than once as if he was bent on darting from his hiding place and confronting the two scoundrels in the inner room. But evidently he was placing great restraint upon himself, for he turned to Jack and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. At the same instant, Carrington returned with a large roll of tracing paper in his hand. There was an agitation about him scarcely warranted by the circumstances of the case. It was as if he had seen something dreadful during his brief absence. Anstruther looked at him with some scorn. "What a face!" he growled. "If you go down to the bank looking like that you will have a run on the concern in half an hour. No ghosts about here, I suppose?"

"It isn't that," Carrington said hoarsely; "but it is something I have found in the corridor. It was lying on the floor close by the dining-room door. Tell me, have you ever seen it before?"

With a shaking hand Carrington laid a small silver-mounted moleskin tobacco pouch on the table. At the same moment Jack noticed that his companion had given a great start. There was no need for Jack to be told that the tobacco pouch in question was Seymour's property, and had been dropped by him accidentally a little time before.

"Why, you don't mean to say this belongs to Seymour," Anstruther cried, and there was a real anxiety in his voice. "Yes, you are quite correct; I distinctly remember Seymour buying this peculiar pattern of filigree silver. Now you see why I wanted to get that fellow out of the way. I have tried to believe that he was dead and gone, but not only is it quite evident that he is very much alive, but also it is equally plain that he has been here to-night."

Carrington fairly shook as he hoarsely muttered his opinion that Anstruther was right. He glanced timidly about him, as if expecting to meet the face of Seymour; he stepped towards the conservatory, as if suspicious that the crimson flowers were hiding his enemy there. Then he gave a shaky half-laugh at his own fears.

"My nerves are all rags to-night," he said. "Positively I imagined that I could see that dreadful scarred face of Seymour glaring at me from behind the bank of geraniums. Call me a coward if you like, but I must really ask you to turn up the light in the conservatory. I dare not do it myself."

Something like a curse broke from the rigid figure by Jack's side. From overhead there dangled an electric light swinging on a long, pliable flex. An instant later, and there would come a brilliant blaze of light if Anstruther could have reached the switch towards which he was contemptuously strolling. An instant later, and the eavesdroppers would have been discovered; but Seymour rose grandly to the situation. With one bound he was across the floor of the conservatory, and literally tore the switch from its place. Instantly the fuses connected with the two rooms short-circuited, and the brilliant light of the inner room was swallowed up in the throat of a great velvety darkness. The thing was so swift, so clever, and so unexpected, that Jack could only gasp. He was conscious of the fact that Seymour had left his side, but only for a moment.

"Confound the light!" Carrington cried. "Give me a match, and I'll light the lamps. This is the second time lately the same thing has happened."

The feeble spurt of a vesta made a tiny blue flame, but it was sufficient to show Carrington the position of two silver lamps. He lighted one of these and then the other, and placed them on the table. As he did so his face grew white again, his tongue began to stammer.

"The plans," he gasped. "Surely I put two on the table? Where is the other?"