m up out of the
whole cloth, as it were, and there was no such Person, how can there
be such a Person? I am merely asking to get it all clear in my head. It
sounds so reasonable when you say it, but there seems to be something
left out."

"I don't know how he can be, but he is," I said, hopelessly. "And he is
exactly like his picture."

"Well, that's not unusual, you know."

"It is in this case. Because I bought the picture in a shop, and just
pretended it was him. (He?) And it WAS."

He got up and paced the floor.

"It's a very strange case," he said. "Do you mind if I light a
cigarette? It helps to clear my brain. What was the name you gave him?"

"Harold Valentine. But he is here under another name, because of my
Familey. They think I am a mere child, you see, and so of course he took
a NOM DE PLUME."

"A NOM DE PLUME? Oh I see! What is it?"

"Grosvenor," I said. "The same as yours."

"There's another Grosvenor in the building, That's where the trouble
came in, I suppose, Now let me get this straight. You wrote a letter,
and somehow or other he got it, and now you want it back. Stripped of
the things that baffle my intellagence, that's it, isn't it?"

I rose in excitement.

"Then, if he lives in the building, the letter is probably here. Why
can't you go and get it for me?"

"Very neat! And let you slip away while I am gone?"

I saw that he was still uncertain that I was telling him the truth. It
was maddening. And only the Letter itself could convince him.

"Oh, please try to get it," I cried, almost weeping. "You can lock me in
here, if you are afraid I will run away. And he is out. I know he is. He
is at the Club ball."

"Naturaly," he said "the fact that you are asking me to compound a
felony, commit larceny, and be an accessery after the fact does not
trouble you. As I told you before, all I have left is my good name, and
now----!"

"Please!" I said.

He stared down at me.

"Certainly," he said. "Asked in that tone, Murder would be one of the
easiest things I do. But I shall lock you in."

"Very well," I said meekly. And after I had described it--the Letter--to
him he went out.

I had won, but my triumph was but sackcloth and ashes in my mouth. I had
won, but at what a cost! Ah, how I wished that I might live again the
past few days! That I might never have started on my Path of Deception!
Or that, since my intentions at the start had been so inocent, I had
taken another photograph at