he's called a cop and had him taken in! The whole
thing's over, Anthony. That trunk's in a police station now and they've
opened it--and your Dalton man's daughter is behind the bars as a
suspicious character before this."

Anthony Fry's scowl turned black.

"Can't you see me peaceful, without trying to smash it by babbling a lot
of rot like that?" he demanded angrily. "Wilkins must have the girl
inside her home by this time and----"

"Why should you be peaceful and happy when my home's wrecked?" Johnson
Boller asked hotly.

"We will not discuss it out here," said his host, leading the way
upstairs again.

Dismally he trailed through the door he had left so cheerfully a moment
ago. Johnson Boller trailed after him even more dismally, albeit with
some grim satisfaction at his altered mien.

"We can sit down here and wait now," he stated. "We don't have to do
anything more than that, Anthony. We can figure it all out. Either he
has had the trunk and Wilkins taken in, or he's just determined that our
guilt is cinched. If the former, all creation knows by this time that
Dalton's daughter was up to something--queer. If there's a general alarm
out for her, they'll recognize her when she comes out of that trunk. On
the other hand, if Hitchin has let the trunk go, he's having warrants
sworn out by this time and they're dusting off the seats in the nearest
patrol-wagon. Either Dalton gets you and probably me, too, or the police
get us. That's all that can happen and----"

"Stop!" Anthony barked. "I don't care a rap what happens, so long as the
girl is not laid open to suspicion, and I don't believe Hitchin or
anybody else is going to contrive that, once Wilkins started to deliver
the trunk. That is my sole concern now--to shield her!"

Having delivered with commendable sentiment, Anthony demonstrated his
entire calm by rising with a nervous jerk, by listening, and finally by
striding to the door of his apartment, which he opened.

Thereafter he stepped back suddenly, for with one searing glance at him
a woman had passed.

She was in the living-room even now, and smiling horribly at Johnson
Boller. She was, in a word, Johnson Boller's wife, and her black eyes
snapped more ominously than before.

"Don't touch me!" she was saying, as Johnson Boller approached with
hands outstretched. "I've come back, but only to tell you!"

"To tell me that you've changed your mind, little pigeon?" Johnson
Boller cried brokenly. "Yo