was somewhere behind him, groping,
and did not come into the picture until suddenly he found the push
button in the wall and switched on the full glare of the electroliers
suspended from the ceiling.

Gladwin saw and recognized. He drew in a deep breath of surprise.

It was Watkins, the thieving butler he had discharged in London. His
attention did not linger on this familiar soft-shuffling tool of the
master thief, however, but snapped back to the big, good looking young
man with the branching shoulders and erect, confident carriage.

Used as he was to immaculate exteriors, Travers Gladwin had never seen
a better groomed man. He had never seen a man with a quicker eye and
more unconscious grace of movement.

It was no wonder that bitter envy gnawed his heart for a little while
as there rose again before him the picture of that bewilderingly
pretty girl and her passionate insistence that she would elope with
"Travers Gladwin" in spite of any and all obstacles.

That underneath all these splendid sheathings the man had the mean
spirit of a deceiver and a robber never entered the young man's head.

But presently things began to happen with such avalanching rapidity of
action that there was not even a second to spare for speculation upon
the vast gap between their social positions.

The lights had hardly been switched on before the big fellow put the
sharp query to his companion:

"Watkins, is this room just as you left it when you went away with Mr.
Gladwin?"

"I don't know, sir," replied Watkins, with characteristic deference of
tone. "Bateato, the Jap, closed the house."

"H'm," said the other, laying his cane and hat on a table and drawing
from the pocket of his light overcoat a blue print diagram of the
house. Casting his eyes about the room, he unfolded the diagram and
pointed to it, nodding his head behind him for Watkins to come and
look.

"We're in this room now," he said, easily.

"Yes, sir."

"Out that way is the corridor to the kitchen."

He pointed to the panel-like door which a few minutes before had
swallowed the very much undressed Officer 666.

"Yes, sir."

"And there's no other way out save through the front door or by way of
this balcony behind those curtains?"

"No, sir."

"And," still running his finger over the diagram, "on the floor above
are Gladwin's apartments."

"Yes, sir, at the head of the stairs--first door to the left."

"H'm, very good," slipping the diagram back