She closed the door behind the unexpected guest, and Barnes gave a great sigh of relief.

"Say, Mr. Barnes," said Miss Thackeray, several hours later, coming upon him in the hall; "I guess I'll have to ask you to explain a little. She's a nice, pretty girl, and all that, but she won't open her lips about anything. She says you will do the talking. I'm a good sport, you know, and not especially finicky, but I'd like to--"

"How is she? Is she resting? Does she seem--"

"Well, she's stretched out in my bed, with my best nightie on, and she seems to be doing as well as could be expected," said Miss Thackeray dryly.

"Has she had coffee and--"

"I am going after it now. It seems that she is in the habit of having it in bed. I wish I had her imagination. It would be great to imagine that all you have to do is to say 'I think I'll have coffee and rolls and one egg' sent up, and then go on believing your wish would come true. Still, I don't mind. She seems so nice and pathetic, and in trouble, and I--"

"Thank you, Miss Thackeray. If you will see that she has her coffee, I'll--I'll wait for you here in the hall and try to explain. I can't tell you everything at present,--not without her consent,--but what I do tell will be sufficient to make you think you are listening to a chapter out of a dime novel."

He had already taken Putnam Jones into his confidence. He saw no other way out of the new and somewhat extraordinary situation.

His uneasiness increased to consternation when he discovered that Sprouse had not yet put in an appearance. What had become of the man?

He could not help feeling, however, that somehow the little agent would suddenly pop out of the chimney in his room, or sneak in through a crack under the door,--and laugh at his fears.

His lovely companion, falling asleep, blocked all hope of a council of war, so to speak. Miss Thackeray refused to allow her to be disturbed.

She listened with sparkling eyes to Barnes's curtailed account of the exploit of the night before. He failed to mention Mr. Sprouse. It was not an oversight.

"Sort of white slavery game, eh?" she said, with bated breath. "Good gracious, Mr. Barnes, if this story ever gets into the newspapers you'll be the grandest little hero in--"

"But it must never get into the newspapers," he cried.

"It ought to," she proclaimed stoutly. "When a gang of white slavers kidnap a girl like that and--"

"I'm not saying it was that," he protested, uncomfortably.

"Well, I guess I'll talk to her about that part of the story," said Miss Thackeray sagely. "And as you say, mum's the word. We don't want them to get onto the fact that she's here. That's the idea, isn't it?"

"Absolutely."

"Then," she said, wrinkling her brow, "I wouldn't repeat this story to Mr. Lyndon Rushcroft, father of yours truly. He would blab it all over the county. The greatest press stuff in the world. Listen to it: 'Lyndon Rushcroft, the celebrated actor, takes part in the rescue of a beautiful heiress who falls into the hands of So and So, the king of kidnappers.' That's only a starter. So we'd better let him think she just happened in. You fix it with old Jones, and I'll see that Dilly keeps his mouth shut. I fear I shall have to tell Mr. Bacon." She blushed. "I have always sworn I'd never marry any one in the profession, but--Mr. Bacon is not like other actors, Mr. Barnes. You will say so yourself when you know him better. He is more like a--a--well, you might say a poet. His soul is--but, you'll think I'm nutty if I go on about him. As soon as she awakes, I'll take her up to the room you've engaged for her, and I'll lend her some of my duds, bless her heart. What an escape she's had! Oh, my G.o.d!"

She uttered the exclamation in a voice so full of horror that Barnes was startled.

"What is it, Miss Thack--"

"Why, they might have nabbed me yesterday when I was up there in the woods! And I don't know what kind of heroism goes with a poetic nature.

I'm afraid Mr. Bacon--"

He laughed. "I am sure he would have acted like a man."

"If you were to ask father, he'd say that Mr. Bacon can't act like a man to save his soul. He says he acts like a fence-post."

Shortly before the noon hour, Peter Ames halted the old automobile from Green Fancy in front of the Tavern and out stepped O'Dowd, followed by no less a personage than the pseudo Mr. Loeb. There were a number of travelling bags in the tonneau of the car.

Catching sight of Barnes, the Irishman shouted a genial greeting.

"The top of the morning to ye. You remember Mr. Loeb, don't you? Mr.

Curtis's secretary."

He shook hands with Barnes. Loeb bowed stiffly and did not extend his hand.

"Mr. Loeb is leaving us for a few days on business. Will you be moving on yourself soon, Mr. Barnes?"

"I shall hang around here a few days longer," said Barnes, considerably puzzled but equal to the occasion. "Still interested in our murder mystery, you know."

"Any new developments?"

"Not to my knowledge." He ventured a crafty "feeler." "I hear, however, that the state authorities have asked a.s.sistance of the secret service people in Washington. That would seem to indicate that there is more behind the affair than--"

"Have I not maintained from the first, Mr. O'Dowd, that it is a case for the government to handle?" interrupted Loeb. He spoke rapidly and with unmistakable nervousness. Barnes remarked the extraordinary pallor in the man's face and the shifty, uneasy look in his dark eyes. "It has been my contention, Mr. Barnes, that those men were trying to carry out their part of a plan to inflict--"

"Lord love ye, Loeb, you are not alone in that theory," broke in O'Dowd hastily. "I think we're all agreed on that. Good morning, Mr.

Boneface," he called out to Putnam Jones who approached at that juncture. "We are sadly in want of gasoline."

Peter had backed the car up to the gasoline hydrant at the corner of the building and was waiting for some one to replenish his tank. Barnes caught the queer, perplexed look that the Irishman shot at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Perhaps you'd better see that the scoundrels don't give us short measure, Mr. Loeb," said O'Dowd. Loeb hesitated for a second, and then, evidently in obedience to a command from the speaker's eye, moved off to where Peter was opening the intake. Jones followed, bawling to some one in the stable-yard.

O'Dowd lowered his voice. "Bedad, your friend made a smart job of it last night. He opened the tank back of the house and let every d.a.m.n'

bit of our gas run out. Is she safe inside?"

"Yes, thanks to you, old man. You didn't catch him?"

"Not even a whiff of him," said the other lugubriously. "The devil's to pay. In the name of G.o.d, how many were in your gang last night?"

"That is for Mr. Loeb to find out," said Barnes shrewdly.

"Barnes, I let you off last night, and I let her off as well. In return, I ask you to hold your tongue until the man down there gets a fair start." O'Dowd was serious, even imploring.

"What would she say to that, O'Dowd? I have to consider her interests, you know."

"She'd give him a chance for his white alley, I'm sure, in spite of the way he treated her. There is a great deal at stake, Barnes. A day's start and--"

"Are you in danger too, O'Dowd?"

"To be sure,--but I love it. I can always squirm out of tight places.

You see, I am putting myself in your hands, old man."

"I would not deliberately put you in jeopardy, O'Dowd."

"See here, I am going back to that house up yonder. There is still work for me there. What I'm after now is to get him on the train at Hornville. I'll be here again at four o'clock, on me word of honour.

Trust me, Barnes. When I explain to her, she'll agree that I'm doing the right thing. Bedad, the whole bally game is busted. Another week and we'd have--but, there ye are! It's all up in the air, thanks to you and your will-o'-the-wisp rascals. You played the deuce with everything."

"Do you mean to say that you are coming back here to run the risk of being--"