ntil this evening. Why, man alive, I insisted
on the search! I asked you to examine the wallet! Do you think I did all
that to establish my own guilt?"

"We'll keep to the point, please." His very politeness was ill omened.
"The papers were in your baggage. Can you explain how they came there?"

"I am going to try," I answered coolly. "To begin with, I can vouch for
it that they were not there two weeks ago when my man packed the trunk.
That I can swear to, for I glanced through the letters before handing
him the wallet; and when he had finished packing I locked the trunk and
went yachting for five days."

"And your luggage? Did it go with you?" queried the Englishman.

"No; it didn't. It remained in the baggage-room of my apartment house;
but when I landed and found hotel quarters, I had it sent to me at the
St. Ives."

"So you stayed there!" He was eyeing me with ever-growing disfavor.
"You didn't know, of course, that it was a nest of agents, a sort of
rendezvous for hyphenates, and that the last spy we caught on this line
had made it his headquarters in New York?"

"I did not," I replied stiffly. "But I can believe the worst of it.
Now, here's what befell me there." I recounted my adventure briefly,
beginning with the summons from restaurant to telephone.

It was strange how, as I talked, each detail fell into its place, how
each little circumstance, formerly so mystifying, grew clear. The alarm
of the _maitre d'hotel_ over my sudden departure, his relief when I
entered the booths, his corresponding horror when, emerging, I took
the elevator for my room, puzzled me no longer. The deserted halls, the
flight of the little German intruder, the determined lack of interest of
the hotel management, were merely links in the chain.

I told a straight, unvarnished story with one exception. When I came
to the point I couldn't bring in Miss Esme Falconer's name. I said
non-committally that a lady had occupied the room where the thief took
refuge; and I left it to be inferred that I had never seen her before or
since.

The lieutenant heard my tale out with impassivity. "Is that all, Mr.
Bayne?" he asked shortly, as I paused.

"Yes," I lied doggedly. "And if you want more, I call you insatiable.
I've told you enough to satisfy any man's appetite for the abnormal,
haven't I?"

"Your defense, then," he summed it up, "is that under the protection of
a German management a German agent entered your room, opened your trun