brary," laughed Mrs. Farnsworth. "My back
was to the door, but I was facing a mirror. The moment you and Alice
went into the hall he pounced upon the fan--pounced is the only word
that describes it. He concealed his interest in it very neatly when you
caught him examining it."

"Fans are harmless things," said Alice, "and if there's any story
attached to this one I'm not aware of it. My father bought it in Paris
about three years ago, and it has never been out of my possession except
to have it repaired. There's a Japanese jeweller who does wonderful
things in the way of repairing trinkets of every kind. I left it with
him for a few days. I can't tell now which panel was broken, he did his
work so deftly."

I took it from her and balanced it in my fingers. It was a beautiful
piece of workmanship with the simplest carvings on the ivory panels.

"He couldn't have seen it anywhere before to-night," observed Alice
musingly. "In fact, I hadn't used it at all for a year. It was really by
mistake that my maid put it into my trunk when I went to Japan. I
didn't want to risk breaking it again, so I've been carrying it in a
hand-bag. The last day we were in Tokyo I think I had it in our
sitting-room in the hotel, to make sure it wasn't jammed into the trunk
again. We had a good many callers--a number of people came in to bid us
good-by, but I'm sure Count Montani was not among them, and it would
have been impossible for him to see it at any other time."

"Oh, there is nothing disturbing in the count's interest in the thing,"
said Mrs. Farnsworth with an air of dismissing the matter. "If it were a
Jade trinket inscribed with Chinese mysteries, you might imagine that it
would be sought by some one--I have heard of such things--but Alice's
fan has no such history."

"We weren't very hospitable," said Alice. "I might have asked Count
Montani to dine with us to-morrow; and we might even have put him up for
the night in this vast house."

"Not with Antoine on the premises!" I exclaimed. "Antoine is convinced
that the man is what we call in America a crook. And Antoine takes his
responsibilities very seriously."

While I was breakfasting at the garage the next morning Antoine appeared
and, waiting until Flynn was out of hearing, handed me a slip of paper.

"That's a New York automobile number," he said. "It was on the tag of
that machine the party came in last night. I heard him saying, sir, as
how he had motored up from the El