him, and was now
in hiding in this country for the sole purpose of having Mrs. Vinsolving
assassinated in revenge, because her late husband, while an officer in
the Army, had perfected a poison gas deadlier than any other known,
which, being kept a secret by this Government and used against the
German army in the war, had brought about the victory for our side and
led to the overthrow of the Kaiser's outfit.

"She went on to say she had run away from some suburban town or other to
hide in New York and that was why she had taken refuge at Mrs.
Sheehan's, thinking she would be in safety. But now she knew the
plotters had tracked her, because she had just detected that the maid
who had been bringing up her meals to her was really a German agent, and
acting under orders from the Kaiser had put poison into her food. All of
which naturally surprised Mrs. Sheehan considerably, especially as the
accused servant happened to be a perfectly reliable Finnish girl who has
been working for Mrs. Sheehan for five years and who had two brothers in
the Seventy-seventh Division overseas.

"It didn't take Mrs. Sheehan two minutes--she being a pretty
level-headed person evidently--to see what ailed her new boarder. She
managed to get Mrs. Vinsolving quieted down and get her back again into
her room, and then she called in the policeman on the post and inside
of an hour the woman had been smuggled out of the house and was on her
way to Bellevue in an ambulance with a doctor and a policeman guarding
her. But by that time, of course, the news had leaked out among the
other boarders and the whole place was beginning to stew with
excitement. It was still stewing when I got there.

"Well, as soon as you told me over the telephone that you were bent and
determined on going to Bellevue, though I do not see why you should be
in such a hurry about it and taking chances on setting up an
inflammation in your injured arm, because even though you do know the
poor crazed creature you can't be of any help--"

"I don't know her. I never saw her in my life."

"Then why--"

"That part can wait. I'll explain later. You were saying that as soon as
you talked with me over the telephone you did something. What was it?"

"Oh, yes, I called up Doctor Steele, chief surgeon in the psychopathic
ward, who happens to be a friend of mine and one of us besides"--he
tapped the badge he wore under his coat lapel--"and told him I was
bringing you down to see this wom