Willard Lyall fainted and his gang busted.

Mercia halfway through a rippling medley of sharps and naturals stopped with a jerk, her white fingers poised daintily above the keys.

"What was that?" she said in a puzzle voice to herself. What had seemed just like an unmistakable bump had just sounded in the next room. She thought something must have fallen over but one can never tell with a half a dozen servants busy about the house. They make such queer noises at times, shifting furniture about and doing the myriad things that only servants seem to find necessary to do.

"That you dad?" she called. And no answering hail came from the next room.

"Dad are you there?" she called again rising from her stool. And there was silence in the study.

Mercia ran in. Her father was lying prone on the floor, his face buried in the thick pile of the carpet almost suffocating.

"mummy come quickly," she cried through the door.

"Dad has fainted quickly phone the doctor."

she was down on her hands and knees in a moment lifting her father's head clear off the suffocating carpet. As she did so his right arm twitched convulsively and there came a soft rustle of paper from the thick pile. Her eyes turned automatically to the outstretched hand and she saw the telegram clutched tightly in the rigid fingers.

Mrs. Lyall hurried In, white and agitated. Together they got falling man across to a low divan.

"What----what on earth has happened? Mercia my dear girl what is the matter?" Mrs. Lyall with matronly solicitude was all a-fluter over her husband.

Mercia with a significant gesture indicated the crushed telegram.

"It looks as though that wire has something to do with it," she said.

"help me Mercia

Mrs. Lyall worried but very competent, began opening his collar and and easing his clothing while Mercia, with delicately strong fingers coaxed Lyall's hand open far enough to retrieve the telegram.

The two women with white faces read together.

Mercia looked at her mother her lips were. pressed up into a thin firm line and there was a very determined look in her eyes.

"mother," she said, "there is something very ugly going on and dad is mixed up in it."

"Sh-----my dear-----you---"

"Look what this telegram says and then think of then think of the deliberate way dad turned down Mr. Dain's invitation down. This is no game of bridge. I think it is something very serious, so serious that dad won't even discuss it with you. This morning at breakfast he was as worried and harassed as he could possibly be. A couple of hours later he gets this extraordinary telegram and faints."

"Sh! dear," she murmured gently. "The servants will hear you. of course there's a great deal that requires explanation but we mustn't talk about it here. I will have a serious talk with dad as soon as he is well enough."

Mrs. Lyall was frightened. she begun to suspect something sinister behind her husband's conduct, something so sinister that she dared not hint at it even to her daughter.

Two o'clock had dinned out on the great brassy bells of London. An occasional taxi prowled slowly through the night and now and then a wagon of milk-churns bumped noisily over the cobbles.

Round in the backwater of the kingsland mews not a sound broke the stillness. A solitary gas-jet flickered fitfully in a broken glass lamp at the far end of the horse-stalls but even it was almost obscured by dirt and grime.

The men of the headquarters special sqaudrons hidden and silent as the darkness itself, awaited the play's culmination. They could actually hear the hoarse whisperings, the anxious speculations of the worried gangsters as minute after minute ticked by with no sign of their leader. Half-past two boomed, and then a quarter to three. still they waited alone and leaderless.

A gentle drizzle began to fall, frosting their coats with tiny beads of moisture. The muttering grew sullen. The Yard men motionless as statues in the stalls heard the irritated decision to get ahead with the job and do it themselves.

five figures, silent as shadows left the sheltering obscurity of the mews and crawled down into the area. there was a few seconds silence, and then the soft scarcely audible hiss of a diamond scoring a trail across a pane of glass merged on the quiet air.

And then the Yard played it's comedy out. very simple but very effectively.

Other black shadows appeared, sidling on rubber-shod feet down the area steps. A single pair of hawk-like eyes noted them. Before he could open his mouth to rap out a startled warning, a ham-like hand massive and bony slid out from behind him and closed over his lips like a huge and none too gentle gag. The man standing upon the window sill suddenly found his feet knocked from under him. He went over with a crash. The window he had been cutting through opened silently, and two other shadows leapt out.

It was all over in a few seconds. The Yard men smothered them. The element of surprise had been preserved and introduced with such complete effect that the gangsters were bewildered. Taken off their guard they were doubly at a disadvantage, for in the inky darkness they could not distinguished friend from for.

Out in Park Lane, the single note of a whistle piped flute-like and clear on the night air. In response, punctual to the second, a motor swung round out of Norfolk Street and halted purring contentedly at the entrance to the mews. it was a big car, big and sinisterly black with large gilt initials on the sides. Coincident with its advent, the two watchers in the Park emerged from the gloom of the trees and scaled the railings. They drew their automatics and barred up the exit.

The detectives ushered their captives with indecorous politeness, out to the waiting Maria. the gangsters went sullenly, with handcuffs on their wrists and unspeakable profanity in their hearts. They felt like flies, silly, childish flies that had walked wide eyed into the spiders parlour. They knew that the Law was grinning at them.