"He's _not_."

"Wan o'clock, there or thereabouts."

"Faith and he didn't say."

"Pwhat name will I be tellin' him?"

"Kape ut to yersilf, thin. 'Tis none of me business."

"If ye do, I'll not answer. Sure, am I to be climbin' two flights av sthairs iv'ry foive minits----"

"Good-by yersilf," hanging up the receiver. "And the divvle fly away wid ye," grumbled O'Hagan.

As he turned away from the instrument Maitland managed to produce a sound, something between a moan and a strangled cough. The old man whirled on his heel. "Pwhat's thot?"

The next instant he was bending over Maitland, peering into the face drawn and disfigured by the gag. "The saints presarve us! And who the divvle are ye at all? Pwhy don't ye spake?"

Maitland turned purple; and emitted a furious snort.

"Misther Maitland, be all thot's strange!... Is ut mad I am? Or how did ye get back here and into this fix, sor, and me swapin' the halls and polishin' the brasses fernist the front dure iv'ry minute since ye wint out?"

Indignation struggling for the upper hand with mystification in the Irishman's brain, he grumbled and swore; yet busied his fingers. In a trice the binding gag was loosed, and ropes and straps cast free from swollen wrists and ankles. And, with the assistance of a kindly arm behind his shoulders, Maitland sat up, grinning with the pain of renewing circulation in his limbs.

"Wid these two oies mesilf saw ye lave three hours gone, sor, and I c'u'd swear no sowl had intered this house since thin. Pwhat does ut all mane, be all thot's holy?"

"It means," panting, "brandy and soda, O'Hagan, and be quick."

Maitland attempted to rise, but his legs gave under him, and he sank back with a stifled oath, resigning himself to wait the return of normal conditions. As for his head, it was threatening to split at any moment, the tight wires twanging infernally between his temples; while the corners of his mouth were cracked and sore from the pressure of the gag. All of which totted up a considerable debit against Mr. Anisty's account.

For Maitland, despite his suffering, had found time to figure it out to his personal satisfaction--or dissatisfaction, if you prefer--in the interval between his return to consciousness and the arrival of O'Hagan. It was simple enough to deduce from the knowledge in his possession that the burglar, having contrived his escape through the disobedience of Higgins, should have engineered this complete revenge for the indignity Maitland had put upon him.

How he had divined the fact of the jewels remaining in their owner's possession was less clear; and yet it was reasonable, after all, to presume that Maitland should prefer to hold his own. Possibly Anisty had seen the girl slip the canvas bag into Maitland's pocket while the latter was kneeling and binding his captive. However that was, there was no denying that he had trailed the treasure to its hiding-place, unerringly; and succeeded in taking possession of it with consummate skill and audacity. When Maitland came to think of it, he recalled distinctly the trend of the burglar's inquisition in the character of "Mr. Snaith," which had all been calculated to discover the location of the jewels. And, when he did recall this fact, and how easily he had been duped, Maitland could have ground his teeth in melodramatic rage--but for the circumstance that when first it occurred to him, such a feat was a physical impossibility, and even when ungagged the operation would have been painful to an extreme.

Sipping the grateful drink which O'Hagan presently brought him, the young man pondered the case; with no pleasure in the prospect he foresaw. If Higgins had actually communicated the fact of Anisty's escape to the police, the entire affair was like to come out in the papers,--all of it, that is, that he could not suppress. But even figuring that he could silence Higgins and O'Hagan,--no difficult task: though he might be somewhat late with Higgins,--the most discreet imaginable explanation of his extraordinary conduct would make him the laughing stock of his circle of friends, to say nothing of a city that had been accustomed to speak of him as "Mad Maitland," for many a day.

Unless....

Ah, he had it! He could pretend (so long as it suited his purpose, at all events), to have been the man caught and left bound in Higgins'

care. Simple enough: the knocking over of the butler would be ascribed to a natural ebullition of indignation, the subsequent flight to a hare-brained notion of running down the thief. And yet even that explanation had its difficulties. How was he to account for the fact that he had failed to communicate with the police--knowing that his treasure had been ravished?

It was all very involved. Mr. Maitland returned the glass to O'Hagan and, cradling his head in his hands, racked his brains in vain for a satisfactory tale to tell. There were so many things to be taken into consideration. There was the girl in grey....

Not that he had forgotten her for an instant; his fury raged but the higher at the thought that Anisty's interference had prevented his (Maitland's) keeping the engagement. Doubtless the girl had waited, then gone away in anger, believing that the man in whom she had placed faith had proved himself unworthy. And so he had lost her for ever, in all likelihood: they would never meet again.

But that telephone call?

"O'Hagan," demanded the haggard and distraught young man, "who was that on the wire just now?"

Being a thoroughly trained servant, O'Hagan had waited that question in silence, a-quiver with impatience though he was. Now, his tongue unleashed, his words fairly stumbled on one another's heels in his anxiety to get them out in the least possible time. "Sure, an' 'twas a leddy, sor, be the v'ice av her, askin' were ye in, and mesilf havin'

seen ye go out no longer ago thin wan o'clock and yersilf sayin' not a worrud about comin' back at all at all, pwhat was I to be tellin' her, aven if ye were lyin' there on the dievan all unbeknownest to me, which the same mesilf can not----"

"Help!" pleaded the young man feebly, smiling. "One thing at a time, please, O'Hagan. Answer me one question: Did she give a name?"

"She did not, sor, though mesilf----"

"There, there! Wait a bit. I want to think."

Of course she had given no name; it wouldn't be like her.... What was he thinking of, anyway? It could not have been the grey girl; for she knew him only as Anisty; she could never have thought him himself, Maitland.... But what other woman of his acquaintance did not believe him to be out of town?

With a hopeless gesture, Maitland gave it up, conceding the mystery too deep for him, his intellect too feeble to grapple with all its infinite ramifications. The counsel he had given O'Hagan seemed most appropriate to his present needs: One thing at a time. And obviously the first thing that lay to his hand was the silencing of O'Hagan.

Maitland rallied his wits to the task. "O'Hagan," said he, "this man, Snaith, who was here this afternoon, called himself a detective. As soon as we were alone he rapped me over the head with a loaded cane, and, I suspect, went through the flat stealing everything he could lay hands on.... Hand me my cigarette case, please."

"'Tis gone, sor--'tis not on the desk, at laste, pwhere I saw ut last."

"Ah! You see?... Now for reasons of my own, which I won't enter into, I don't want the affair to get out and become public. You understand? I want you to keep your mouth shut, until I give you permission to open it."

"Very good, sor." The janitor-valet had previous experiences with Maitland's generosity in grateful memory; and shut his lips tightly in promise of virtuous reticence.

"You won't regret it.... Now tell me what you mean by saying that you saw me go out at one this afternoon?"

Again the flood gates were lifted; from the deluge of explanations and protestations Maitland extracted the general drift of narrative. And in the end held up his hand for silence.

"I think I understand, now. You say he had changed to my grey suit?"

O'Hagan darted into the bedroom, whence he emerged with confirmation of his statement.

"'Tis gone, sor, an'--."

"All right. But," with a rueful smile, "I'll take the liberty of countermanding Mr. Snaith's order. If he should call again, O'Hagan, I very much want to see him."

"Faith, and 'tis mesilf will have a worrud or two to whispher in the ear av him, sor," announced O'Hagan grimly.

"I'm afraid the opportunity will be lacking: ... You may fix me a hot bath now, O'Hagan, and put out my evening clothes. I'll dine at the club to-night and may not be back."

And, rising, Maitland approached a mirror; before which he lingered for several minutes, cataloguing his injuries. Taken altogether, they amounted to little. The swelling of his wrists and ankles was subsiding gradually; there was a slight redness visible in the corners of his mouth, and a shadow of discoloration on his right temple--something that could be concealed by brushing his hair in a new way.

"I think I shall do," concluded Maitland; "there's nothing to excite particular comment. The bulk of the soreness is inside."

Seven P. M.

"Time," said the short and thick-set man casually, addressing no one in particular.

He shut the lid of his watch with a snap and returned the timepiece to his waistcoat pocket. Simultaneously he surveyed both sides of the short block between Seventh and St. Nicholas Avenues with one comprehensive glance.

Presumably he saw nothing of interest to him. It was not a particularly interesting block, for that matter: though somewhat typical of the neighborhood. The north side was lined with five-story flat buildings, their dingy-red brick facades regularly broken by equally dingy brownstone stoops, as to the ground floor, by open windows as to those above. The south side was mostly taken up by a towering white apartment hotel with an ostentatious entrance; against one of whose polished stone pillars the short and thick-set man was lounging.

The sidewalks, north and south, swarmed with children of assorted ages, playing with that ferocious energy characteristic of the young of Harlem; their blood-curdling cries and premature Fourth-of-July fireworks created an appalling din: to which, however, the more mature denizens had apparently become callous, through long endurance.