eing, vanish into the
Ewigkeit."

"What--forever?" Curtis could not help saying.

"No, for a week or so." Steingall darted a quick glance to his
questioner. "I have a stupid trick of adopting phrases from my pet
authors," he said. "Does Ewigkeit mean eternity?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I withdraw it."

"Try Niflheim."

"Or Ruedesheim," suggested Devar wickedly.

Steingall laughed. Despite his German-sounding name, he spoke French
fluently, but German not at all.

"They're off the map," he said. "There, that's good American, and I'll
get on with my story, or rather, with the lack of it. I cannot, of
course, foretell the exact lines our discussion with Schmidt and his
clients will follow, but if I have made you understand that your
combined share in it is to say little, and be thoroughly non-committal
in anything you may have to say, I am content."

"You are as mysterious as an astrologer," vowed Devar. "Having money
to burn one day in Paris, I visited one of those jokers, and he told me
I was born in Capricorn, under the sign of Aries, and I as good as told
him he was a liar, because I was born in Manhattan under an ordinary
roof. By Jove! that reminds me, John D., you're a whale on stars. Did
you spot those two last night, low down in the west?"

"Yes."

"And what did they prognosticate?"

"That you and I would promise Mr. Steingall not to spoil any scheme he
may have in mind by interfering at an inopportune moment."

"I suppose I ought to feel crushed, but I don't," said Devar.

"My dear fellow, if it hadn't been for you and your loyal championship
at the right moment, I might easily have been in jail as an accomplice
of the unknown scoundrels who killed Mr. Hunter."

"That's the right kind of remark," broke in the detective. "I think
I'll offer each of you a post in the Bureau after this business is
ended."

"Give me a pointer on one matter," said Devar. "You spoke of Schmidt's
clients. Who are they?"

He whistled softly when he heard the names of Valletort and Vassilan
and de Courtois.

"Up to the neck in it again!" he crowed. "Oh, it's me that is the
happy youth because I blew in to New York at the right time yesterday."

Otto Schmidt's office was in Madison Square, perched high above the
clatter of 23d Street. The windows of the lawyer's private sanctum
commanded magnificent views of the city to south and west, and in that
marvelously clear air the Statue of Liberty seemed to be