He had, as it were, taken up arms on their side, and if the princes of Posen would not continue their own battle, nevertheless he, Theodore Racksole, wanted to continue it for them.

To a certain extent, of course, the battle had been won, for Prince Eugen had been rescued from an extremely difficult and dangerous position, and the enemy--consisting of Jules, Rocco, Miss Spencer, and perhaps others--had been put to flight.

But that, he conceived, was not enough; it was very far from being enough.

That the criminals, for criminals they decidedly were, should still be at large, he regarded as an absurd anomaly.

And there was another point: he had said nothing to the police of all that had occurred.