“No,” she repeated, with decision, “there can be nothing said to cause me more apprehension than the possibilities I have already pictured to myself. Thank Mr. Schilder for me, please, and tell him that I shall certainly attend the conference.”
First, however, she determined to call up Grail once more; then, if she failed to find him at the fort, she would be satisfied that some calamity had befallen him, and that both for his sake and her father’s she would have to resort to another ally.
Accordingly, an opportunity arising for her to slip away just as Major Appleby and his associates commenced to arrive, she stole once more to the attic.
Confronted by the darkness and the possibility of scampering rats, she halted for a moment, strongly tempted to turn and flee; then, nerving herself to the effort, although still quaking with trepidation, she dashed up the steps and over toward the wireless instrument.
Halfway across the space, her wild rush was abruptly stayed, and she came to her knees, a stifled shriek of terror on her lips.
She had stumbled over the body of a man, bound and gagged, lying directly in her path.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MARKED NAMES.
As Grail turned back into his quarters, after seeing Meredith off, that night of her arrival from Chicago, his face had fallen into lines of troubled solicitude, and he gave an ominous shake of the head, for it was idle to deny that the startling news concerning Sasaku had filled him with the gravest sort of misgivings. Indicating that this was no ordinary game of hide and seek, such as the gumshoe men of the various powers are accustomed to play with each other, but a sinister intrigue, prepared to balk at nothing to gain its ends, it raised a serious question as to the possible fate which had befallen the colonel.
Hurriedly summoning his “striker,” he sent him out for a copy of the extra Herald containing an account of the murder; then, when the paper had arrived, he devoted himself to a careful perusal and analysis of the details.