The detective at once uttered an exclamation of supreme astonishment.

“The very thing!” he cried.  “The same Japanese motto as that on the Ko-Katana!”

Hume now drew near.

“So,” he growled savagely, “the hand that struck down Alan was the same that sought my life an hour ago!”

“And your cousin’s this morning,” said Brett

“The cowardly brute!  If he has a grudge against my family, why doesn’t he come out into the open?  He need not have feared detection, even a week ago.  I could be found easily enough.  Why didn’t he meet me face to face?  I have never yet run away from trouble or danger.”

“You are slightly in error regarding him,” observed Brett.  “This man may be a fiend incarnate, but he Is no coward.  He means to kill, to work some terrible purpose, and he takes the best means towards that end.  To his mind the idea of giving a victim fair play is sheer nonsense.  It never even occurs to him.  But a coward! no.  Think of the nerve required to commit robbery and murder under the conditions that obtained at Beechcroft on New Year’s Eve.  Think of the skill, the ready resource, which made so promptly available the conditions of the two assaults to-day.  Our quarry is a genius, a Poe among criminals.  Look to it, Winter, that your handcuffs are well fixed when you arrest him, or he will slip from your grasp at the very gates of Scotland Yard.”

“If I had my fingers round his windpipe—­” began David.

“You would be a dead man a few seconds later,” said the barrister.  “If we three, unarmed, had him in this room now, equally defenceless, I should regard the issue as doubtful.”

“There would be a terrible dust-up,” smirked Winter.

“Possibly; but it would be a fight for life or death.  No half measures.  A matter of decanters, fire-irons, chairs.  Let us return to the hotel.”

Whilst Hume went to summon the others, Brett seated himself at a table and wrote: 

“A curious chapter of accidents happened in Northumberland Avenue yesterday.  Early in the morning, Mr. Robert Hume-Frazer quitted his hotel for a stroll in the West End, and narrowly escaped being run over in Whitehall.  About 8 p.m. his cousin, Mr. David Hume-Frazer, was driving through the Avenue in a hansom, when the vehicle upset, and the young gentleman was thrown out.  He was picked up in a terrible condition, and is reported to be in danger of his life.”

The barrister read the paragraph aloud.

“It is casuistic,” he commented, “but that defect is pardonable.  After all, it is not absolutely mendacious, like a War Office telegram.  Winter, go and bring joy to the heart of some penny-a-liner by giving him that item.  The ‘coincidence’ will ensure its acceptance by every morning paper in London, and you can safely leave the reporter himself to add details about Mr. Hume’s connection with the Stowmarket affair.”