The _soi-disant_ Mr. Snaith caught him and let him gently and without sound to the floor.

"Poor fool!" he commented, kneeling to make a hasty examination. "Hope I haven't done for him.... It would be the first time.... Bad precedent!... So! He's all right--conscious within an hour.... Too soon!" he added, standing and looking down. "Well, turn about's fair play."

He swung on his heel and entered the hallway, pausing at the door long enough to shoot the bolt; then passed hastily through the other chambers, searching, to judge by his manner.

In the end a closed door attracted him; he jerked it open, with an exclamation of relief. It gave upon a large bare room, used by Maitland as a trunk-closet. Here were stout leather straps and cords in ample measure. "Mr. Snaith" selected one from them quickly but with care, choosing the strongest.

In two more minutes, Maitland, trussed, gagged, still unconscious, and breathing heavily, occupied a divan in his smoking-room, while his assailant, in the bedroom, ears keen to catch the least sound from with-out, was rapidly and cheerfully arraying himself in the Maitland grey-striped flannels and accessories--even to the grey socks which had been specified.

"The less chances one takes, the better," soliloquized "Mr. Snaith."

He stood erect, in another man's shoes, squaring back his shoulders, discarding the disguising stoop, and confronted his image in a pier-glass.

"Good enough Maitland," he commented, with a little satisfied nod to his counterfeit presentment. "But we'll make it better still."

A single quick jerk denuded his upper lip; he stowed the mustache carefully away in his breast pocket. The moistened corner of a towel made quick work of the crow's-feet about his eyes, and, simultaneously, robbed him of a dozen apparent years. A pair of yellow chamois gloves, placed conveniently on a dressing table, covered hands that no art could make resemble Maitland's. And it was Daniel Maitland who studied himself in the pier-glass.

Contented, the criminal returned to the smoking-room. A single glance assured him that his victim was still dead to the world. He sat down at the desk, drew off the gloves, and opened the bag; a peep within which was enough. With a deep and slow intake of breath he knotted the draw-string and dropped the bag into his pocket. A jeweled cigarette case of unique design shared the same fate.

Quick eyes roaming the desk observed the telegram form upon which Maitland had written Cressy's name and address. Momentarily perplexed, the thief pondered this; then, with a laughing oath, seized the pen and scribbled, with no attempt to imitate the other's handwriting, a message:

_"Regret unavoidable detention. Letter of explanation follows."_

To this Maitland's name was signed. "That ought to clear him neatly, if I understand the emergency."

The thief rose, folding the telegraph blank, and returned to the bedroom, taking up his hat and the murderous cane as he went. Here he gathered together all the articles of clothing that he had discarded, conveying the mass to the trunk-room, where an empty and unlocked kit-bag received it all.

"That, I think, is about all."

He was very methodical, this criminal, this Anisty. Nothing essential escaped him. He rejoiced in the minutiae of detail that went to cover up his tracks so thoroughly that his campaigns were as remarkable for the clues he did leave with malicious design, as for those that he didn't.

One final thing held his attention: a bowl of hammered brass, inverted beneath a ponderous book, upon the desk. Why? In a twinkling he had removed both and was studying the impression of a woman's hand in the dust, and nodding over it.

"That girl," deduced Anisty. "Novice, poor little fool!--or she wouldn't have wasted time searching here for the jewels. Good looker, though--from what little _he_"--with a glance at Maitland--"gave me a chance to see of her. Seems to have snared him, all right, if she did miss the haul.... Little idiot! What right has a woman in this business, anyway? Well, here's one thing that will never land me in the pen."

As, with nice care, he replaced both bowl and book, a door slammed below stairs took him to the hall in an instant. Maitland's Panama was hanging on the hat-rack, Maitland's collection of walking-sticks bristled in a stand beneath it. Anisty appropriated the former and chose one of the latter. "Fair exchange," he considered with a harsh laugh. "After all, he loses nothing ... but the jewels."

He was out and at the foot of the stairs just as O'Hagan reached the ground floor from the basement.

"Ah, O'Hagan!" The assumption of Maitland's ironic drawl was impeccable. O'Hagan no more questioned it than he questioned his own sanity. "Here, send this wire at once, please; and," pressing a coin into the ready palm, "keep the change. I was hurried and didn't bother to call you. And, I say, O'Hagan!" from the outer door:

"Yissor."

"If that fellow Snaith ever calls again, I'm not at home."

"Very good, sor."

Anisty permitted himself the slightest of smiles, pausing on the stoop to draw on the chamois gloves. As he did so his eye flickered disinterestedly over the personality of a man standing on the opposite walk and staring at the apartment house. He was a short man, of stoutish habit, sloppily dressed, with a derby pulled down over one eye, a cigar-butt protruding arrogantly from beneath a heavy black mustache, beefy cheeks, and thick-soled boots dully polished.

At sight of him the thief was conscious of an inward tremor, followed by a thrill of excitement like a wave of heat sweeping through his being. Instantaneously his eyes flashed; then were dulled.

Imperturbable, listless, hall-marked the prey of ennui, he waited, undecided, upon the stoop, while the watcher opposite, catching sight of him, abruptly abandoned his slouch and hastened across the street.

"Excuse me" he began in a loud tone, while yet a dozen feet away, "but ain't this Mr. Maitland?"

Anisty lifted his brows and shoulders at one and the same time and bowed slightly.

"Well, my good man?"

"I'm a detective from Headquarters, Mr. Maitland. We got a 'phone from Greenfields, Long Island, this morning--from the local police. Your butler----"

"Ah! I see; about this man Anisty? You don't mean to tell me--what? I shall discharge Higgins at once. Just on my way to breakfast. Won't you join me? We can talk this matter over at our leisure. What do you say to Eugene's? It's handy, and I dare say we can find a quiet corner. By the way, have you the time concealed about your person?"

Anisty was fumbling in his fob-pocket and inwardly cursing himself for having been such an ass as to overlook Maitland's timepiece. "Deuced awkward!" he muttered in genuine annoyance. "I've mislaid my watch."

"It's 'most one o'clock, Mr. Maitland."

Flattered, the man from Headquarters dropped, into step by the burglar's side.

VI

EUGENE'S AT TWO

"Since we don't want to be overheard," remarked Mr. Anisty, "it's no use trying the grill-room down-stairs, although I admit it is more interesting."

"Just as yeh say, sir."

Awed and awkward, the police detective stumbled up the steps behind his imperturbable guide; it was a great honor, in his eyes, to lunch in company with a "swell." Man of stodgy common-sense and limited education that he was, the glamour of the Maitland millions obscured his otherwise clear vision completely. And uneasily he speculated as to whether or not he would be able to manipulate correctly the usual display of knives and forks.

An obsequious head-waiter greeted them, bowing, in the lobby. "Good afternoon, Mr. Maitland," he murmured. "Table for two?"

"Good afternoon," responded the masquerader, with an assumed abstraction, inwardly congratulating himself upon having hit upon a restaurant where the real Maitland was evidently known. There were few circumstances which he could not turn to profit, fewer emergencies to which he could not rise, he complimented Handsome Dan Anisty.

"A table for two," he drawled Maitland-wise, "In a corner somewhere, away from the crowd, you know."

"This way, if you please, Mr. Maitland."

"By the way," suggested the burglar, unfolding his serviette and glancing keenly about the room,--which, by good chance, was thinly populated, "by the way, you know, you haven't told me your name yet."

"Hickey--John W. Hickey, Detective Bureau."

"Thank you." A languid hand pushed the pink menu card across the table to Mr. Hickey. "And what do you see that you'd like?"

"Well...." Hickey became conscious that both unwieldy feet were nervously twined about the legs of his chair; blushed; disentangled them; and in an attempt to cover his confusion, plunged madly into consideration of a column of _table-d'hote_ French, not one word of which conveyed the slightest particle of information to his intelligence.