Yet some strange, indefinable impulse held me back. It was no sentiment of personal fear, either. I had not lost my nerve; nor, despite his cleverness, did I misdoubt my strategic skill successfully to cope with this Dick Turpin, Fate had thrown upon my hands. On the contrary, my impulse arose from a disinclination to engage in any double-dealing with him. Bandit though he was, there was something about him which made me shrink from incurring the contempt I knew I should read in his eyes when he discovered that I had played him false.

He evidently regarded my hesitation as natural under the circumstances, or misunderstood its cause; for he chose to regard the question as settled.

"Well, that being arranged," he said cheerily, "I suppose, your Majesty, we can consider ourselves partners now. If it's a nice day to-morrow I'll be around with the machine about three, and then"

We were interrupted by the jangling whirr of the telephone bell. I arose to answer it, feeling sure that it was Captain McCracken; but I almost dropped the receiver on hearing the name that was announced.

"It's Baggerly," I cried, astonished, clapping my hand over the mouth-piece, and turning to my guest. "He's down stairs, and wishes to see me at once on very important business."

"Then I'll be making myself scarce," he said, catching up cap and gloves and starting for the door. "I can hang out down the corridor until he gets safe in the room." He paused a second with his hand on the knob. "Not a word of my

having been here, though," he adjured. "That is a matter strictly between ourselves." vanished.

He

I turned to the telephone. "Ask Mr. Baggerly to come up," I said evenly. Then, in the interval before he could appear I busied myself in setting the room to rights.

But first I snatched from my bosom the scrap of paper I had picked from the floor and held it eagerly to the light.

"Pshaw!" I exclaimed disappointedly. It was nothing but a clipping from the personal column of a newspaper, one of those vulgar attempts at an affaire which in a certain class seem to afford an outlet for the yearnings of over-susceptible souls.

“WILL lady with opal brooch in Fifth Ave. stage about

ten o'clock Tuesday morning meet gent. in brown derby who sat opposite. Object matrimony. Address, AUTOMOBILE 472."

I was

So this was the kind of a fellow he was. about to crumple up the slip and toss it into the waste-basket; but, on second thought, decided to preserve it. One can never tell just what may turn out to be a clue; and perhaps by rallying my chauffeur over his unknown inamorata of the Fifth Avenue stage I might tease him into divulging something more important.

The same cautious spirit also withheld my hand when I picked up the ash-tray to empty it. Following this leading, although laughing at myself the while, I carefully shook its contents into an envelope, which I laid away in my desk.

Did not Conan Doyle's sagacious hero once deduce the entire structure of a complicated case from the half-smoked butt of a "Trichinopoly"?

CHAPTER III

WITH CROSSED BLADES

BAGGERLY'S face wore an unwontedly serious expression as he entered the room. "Please don't look so surprised,” he said, greeting me; "but I must have a few moments' private conversation, and I seemed unable to manufacture the opportunity this afternoon."

Those shrewd, light eyes of his were darting everywhere. "Ah, I trust I have not disturbed you," his nostrils dilating in an unmistakable sniff; "you have had visitors ?"

"Because of the tobacco smoke? It is unkind of you to discover me. We lonely women, you know, are apt to pick up that rather solacing habit."

As I spoke, partly to bear out my words, and partly to conceal a confusion I could not overcome, I took up a cigarette from the table and pushed the box toward him. But, truth to tell, I really loathe tobacco, and for all my efforts

I could not repress a slight grimace of disgust as I drew in the smoke.

“I am afraid, like myself, you prefer a cigar,” said Baggerly in the most evenly matter-of-fact tone and without the suspicion of a smile. He drew a case from his pocket and offered me one of his own stock.

I drew myself up indignantly; but the rebuke I was about to administer died on my lips. Following his satirical and slightly amused gaze, my eye fell on a little cone of ashes upon the carpet, inadvertently deposited there by my late caller.

"You fancy the ashes refute me?"-in my confusion I made the mistake of attempting to explain. "They are a reminder of Captain McCracken's presence here this morning."

Baggerly laid a tentative finger-tip on the little heap of gray flakes. "Just so," he assented reflectively. "Odd how long ashes retain heat, isn't it?"

I could have struck him, so great was my anger. "Really, Mr. Baggerly," I replied, in as cool a tone as I could command, "for some reason I find it impossible to fathom, you seem determined to make a disagreeable point of a very trifling