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On their return Sing was setting the table on the verandah for the evening meal.

The two men were talking, and without making his presence noticeable the

Chinaman hovered about ever within ear shot.

"I cannot make it out, von Horn," Professor Maxon was saying. "Not a board

broken, and the doors both apparently opened intentionally by someone familiar

with locks and bolts. Who could have done it?"

"You forget Number Thirteen," suggested the doctor.

"But the chest!" expostulated the other. "What in the world would he want of that

enormous and heavy chest?"

"He might have thought that it contained treasure," hazarded von Horn, in an

innocent tone of voice.

"Bosh, my dear man," replied Professor Maxon. "He knew nothing of treasures, or

money, or the need or value of either. I tell you the workshop was opened, and

the inner campong as well by some one who knew the value of money and wanted

that chest, but why they should have released the creatures from the inner

enclosure is beyond me."

And I tell you Professor Maxon that it could have been none other than Number

Thirteen," insisted von Horn. "Did I not myself see him leading his eleven

monsters as easily as a captain commands his company? The fellow is brighter

than we have imagined. He has learned much from us both, he has reasoned,

and he has shrewdly guessed many things that he could not have known through

experience."

"But his object?" asked the professor.

"That is simple," returned von Horn. "You have held out hopes to him that soon

he should come to live under your roof with Virginia. The creature has been

madly infatuated with her ever since the day he took her from Number One, and

you have encouraged his infatuation until yesterday. Then you regained your

sanity and put him in his rightful place. What is the result? Denied the easy

prey he expected he immediately decided to take it by force, and with that end in

view, and taking advantage of the series of remarkable circumstances which

played into his hands, he liberated his fellows, and with them hastened to the

beach in search of Virginia and in hopes of being able to fly with her upon the

Ithaca. There he met the Malay pirates, and together they formed an alliance

under terms of which Number Thirteen is to have the girl, and the pirates the

chest in return for transporting him and his crew to Borneo. Why it is all

perfectly simple and logical, Professor Maxon; do you not see it now?"

The Monster Men