How self-centred is man, and how darkly do his own petty interests overshadow the giant things of life. Thrones may totter and fall, monarchs pass to the limbo of memories, whilst we wrestle with an intractable collar-stud. Had another than Inspector Sheffield been driving to Buckingham Palace that day, he might have found his soul attuned to the martial tone about him; for "War! War!" glared from countless placards, and was cried aloud by countless newsboys. War was in the air. Nothing else, it seemed, was thought of, spoken of, sung of.

But Sheffield at that time was quite impervious to the subtle influences which had inspired music-hall song writers to pour forth patriotic lyrics; which had adorned the button-holes of sober citizens with miniature Union Jacks. For him the question of the hour was: "Shall I capture SÉverac Bablon?"

He reviewed, in the space of a few seconds, the whole bewildering case, from the time when this incomprehensible man had robbed Park Lane to scatter wealth broadcast upon the Embankment up to the present moment when, it would appear, having acted as best man at a Society wedding, he now was within the precincts of Buckingham Palace.

It was the boast of SÉverac Bablon, as Sheffield knew, that no door was closed to him. Perhaps that boast was no idle one. Who was SÉverac Bablon? Inspector Sheffield, who had asked himself that question many months before, when he stood in the British Museum before the empty pedestal which once had held the world-famed head of CÆsar, asked it again now. Alas! it was a question to which he had no answer.

The cab stopped in front of Buckingham Palace.

Sheffield paid the man and walked up to the gates. He was not unknown to those who sat in high places, having been chosen to command the secret bodyguard of Royalty during one protracted foreign tour. An unassuming man, few of his acquaintances, perhaps, knew that he shared with the Lord Mayor of London the privilege of demanding audience at any hour of the day or night.

It was a privilege which hitherto he had never exercised. He exercised it now.

Some five minutes later he found himself in an antechamber, and by the murmur of voices which proceeded from that direction he knew a draped curtain alone separated him from a hastily summoned conference. A smell of cigar smoke pervaded the apartment.

Suddenly, he became quite painfully nervous. Was it intended that he should hear so much? Short of pressing his fingers to his ears, he had no alternative.

"We had all along desired that amicable relations be maintained in this matter, Baron."

That was the Marquess of Evershed. Sheffield knew his voice well.

"It has not appeared so from your attitude, Marquess!"

Whom could that be? Probably Baron Hecht.

"Your intense patriotism, your admirable love of country, Baron, has led you to misconstrue, as affronts, actions designed to promote our friendly relations."

Only one man in England possessed the suave, polished delivery of the last speaker—the Right Honourable Walter Belford.

"I have misconstrued nothing; my instructions have been explicit."

"Fortunately, no further occasion exists for you to carry them out."

Sheffield knew that voice too.

"A Foreign Service Messenger, Mr. Maurice Anerly, left for my capital this morning——"

"Captain Searles has been instructed to intercept him. His dispatch will not be delivered."

Inspector Sheffield, who had been vainly endeavouring to become temporarily deaf, started. Whose voice was that? Could he trust his ears?

There followed the sound as of the clapping of hands upon someone's shoulders.

"Baron Hecht, I hold a most sacred trust—the peace of nations. No one shall rob me of it. Believe me, your great master already is drafting a friendly letter——"

The musical voice again, with that vibrant, forceful note.

"In short, Baron" (Sheffield tried not to hear; for he knew this voice too), "there is a power above the Eagle, a power above the Lion: the power of wealth! Lacking her for ally, no nation can war with another! The king of that power has spoken—and declared for peace! I am glad of it, and so, I know, are you!"

Following a short interval, a shaking of hands, as the unwilling eavesdropper divined. Then, by some other door, a number of people withdrew, amid a hum of seemingly friendly conversation.

A gentleman pulled the curtain aside.

"Come in, Sheffield!" he said genially.

Chief Inspector Sheffield bowed very low and entered a large room, which, save for the gentleman who had admitted him, now was occupied only by the Right Hon. Walter Belford, Home Secretary.

"How do you do, Inspector?" asked Mr. Belford affably.

"Thank you, sir," replied the detective with diffidence; "I am quite well, and trust you are."

"I think I know what has brought you here," continued the Home Secretary. "You have been following——"

"SÉverac Bablon! Yes, sir!"

"As I supposed. Well, it will be expedient, Inspector, religiously to keep that name out of the Press in future! Furthermore—er—any warrant that may be in existence must be cancelled! This is a matter of policy, and I am sending the necessary instructions to the Criminal Investigation Department. In short—drop the case!"

Chief Inspector Sheffield looked rather dazed.

"No doubt, this is a surprise to you," continued Mr. Belford; "but do not allow it to be a disappointment. Your tactful conduct of the case, and the delicate manner in which you have avoided compromising anyone—in which you have handicapped yourself, that others might not be implicated—has not been overlooked. Your future is assured, Inspector Sheffield."

The gentleman who had admitted Sheffield had left the apartment almost immediately afterwards. Now he returned, and fastened a pin in the detective's tie.

"By way of apology for spoiling your case, Sheffield!" he said.

What Sheffield said or did at that moment he could never afterwards remember. A faint recollection he had of muttering something about "SÉverac Bablon——!"

"Ssh!" Mr. Belford had replied. "There is no such person!"

It was at the moment of his leave-taking that his eyes were drawn to an ash-tray upon the big table. A long tongue of bluish-grey smoke licked the air, coiling sinuously upward from amid cigar ends and ashes. It seemingly possessed a peculiar and pungent perfume.

And it proceeded from the smouldering fragment of a yellow cigarette.

When Inspector Sheffield fully recovered his habitual composure and presence of mind, he found himself proceeding along Piccadilly. War was in the breeze; War was on all the placards. Would-be warriors looked out from every club window. "Rule, Britannia" rang out from every street organ.

Then came running a hoarse newsboy, aproned with a purple contents-bill, a bundle of Gleaners under his arm. His stock was becoming depleted at record speed. He could scarce pass the sheets and grab the halfpence rapidly enough.

For where all else spoke of war, his bill read and his blatant voice proclaimed:

"Peace! Official!"

Again the power of the Seal had been exercised in the interests of the many, although popularly it was believed, and maintained, that Britain's huge, efficient, and ever-growing air-fleet contributed not a little to this peaceful conclusion.

The Gleaner assured its many readers that such was indeed the case. To what extent the Gleaner spoke truly, and to what extent its statements were inspired, you are as well equipped to judge as I.

And unless some future day shall free my pen, I have little more to tell you of SÉverac Bablon. Officially, as the Holder of the Seal, his work, at any rate for the time, in England was done. Some day, Sheard may carry his history farther, and he would probably begin where I leave off.

This, then, will be at a certain pier-head, on a summer's day, and at a time when, far out near the sky-line, grey shapes crept southward—battleships—the flying squadron which thirty-six hours earlier had proceeded to a neighbour's water-gate to demonstrate that the command of the seas had not changed hands since the days of Nelson. The squadron was returning to home waters. It was a concrete message of peace, expressed in terms of war.

Nearer to the shore, indeed at no great distance from the pier-head, lay a white yacht, under steam. A launch left her side, swung around her stern, and headed for the pier.

In a lower gallery, shut off from the public promenades, where thousands of curious holiday-makers jostled one another for a sight of the great yacht, or for a glimpse of those about to join her, a tall man leaned upon the wooden rail and looked out to sea. A girl in while drill, whose pretty face was so pale that fashionable New York might have failed to recognise Zoe Oppner, the millionaire's daughter, stood beside him.

"Though I have been wrong," he said slowly, "in much that I have done, even you will agree that I have been right in this."

He waved his hand towards the fast disappearing squadron.

"Even I?" said Zoe sharply.

"Even you. For only you have shown me my errors."

"You admit, then, that your——!"

"Robberies?"

"Not that, of course! But your——"

"Outrages?"

"I did not mean that either. The means you have adopted have often been violent, though the end always was good. But no really useful reform can be brought about in such a way, I am sure."

The man turned his face and fixed his luminous eyes upon hers.

"It may be so," he said; "but even now I see no other way."

Zoe pointed to the almost invisible battleships.

"Ah!" continued SÉverac Bablon, "that was a problem of a different kind. In every civilised land there is a power above the throne. Do you think that, unaided, Prussia ever could have conquered gallant France? The people who owe allegiance to the German Emperor are a great people, but, in such an undertaking as war, without the aid of that people who owe allegiance to me, they are helpless as a group of children! Had I been in 1870 what I am to-day, the Prussian arms had never been carried into Paris!"

"You mean that a nation, to carry on a war, requires an enormous sum of money?"

"Which can only be obtained from certain sources."

"From the Jews?"

"In part, at least. The finance of Europe is controlled by a group of Jewish houses."

"But they are not all——"

"Amenable to my orders? True. But the outrages with which you reproach me have served to show that when my orders are disobeyed I have power to enforce them! Where I am not respected I am feared. I refused my consent to the loan by aid of which Great Britain's enemies had designed to prosecute a war against her. None of those theatrical displays with which sometimes I have impressed the errant vulgar were necessary. The greatest name in European finance was refused to the transaction—and the Great War died in the hour of its birth!"

His eyes gleamed with almost fanatic ardour.

"For this will be forgotten all my errors, and forgiven all my sins!"

"I am sure of that," said Zoe earnestly. "But—whatever you came to do——"

"I have not done—you would say? Only in part. Where I made my home in London, you have seen a curtained recess. It held the Emblem of my temporal power."

He moved his hand, and the sunlight struck green beams from the bezel of the strange ring upon his finger. Zoe glanced at it with something that was almost like fear.

"This," he said, replying, as was his uncanny custom to an unspoken question, "is but the sign whereby I may be known for the holder of that other Emblem. My house is empty now; the Emblem returns to the land where it was fashioned."

"You are abandoning your projects—your mission? Why?"

"Perhaps because the sword is too heavy for the wielder. Perhaps because I am only a man—and lonely."

The launch touched the pier, below them.

"You are the most loyal friend I have made in England—in Europe—in the world," said SÉverac Bablon. "Good-bye."

Zoe was very pale.

"Do you mean—for—always?"

"When you have said 'Good-bye' to me I have nothing else to stay for."

Zoe glanced at him once and looked away. Her charming face suddenly flushed rosily, and a breeze from the sea curtained the bright eyes with intractable curls.

"But if I won't say 'Good-bye'?" she whispered.