last glance at Walsh, who was peering through the grating with a look of evil amusement. He must have been well paid, that burglar. But then,” she mused, “they could afford it—yes, they could well afford it. 

“When I got to the street, Poritol was just disappearing in my car! I can only think that he had lost his head very completely, for he didn’t need to take the car. He could have mixed with the street-crowd and gone afoot to the hotel where——” 

“Alcatrante?” 

“Yes, Mr. Alcatrante—where he was stopping, and have waited there. But Mr. Alcatrante was playing golf at Wheaton, and Mr. Poritol seems to have thought that he must go straight to him. He cannot escape from being spectacular, you see. 

“He ran out through the western suburbs, putting 67 on more and more speed. Meantime I set a detective on the track of the car. That is how I learned what I am now telling you. As for the car, Mr. Poritol sent it back to me this morning with a hired chauffeur. He wrote a note of abject apology, saying that he had been beside himself and had not realized what he was doing. 

67

“After setting the detective at work, I went out to our place by train. I dreaded confessing my failure to father, but he took it very well. We had dinner together in his study. Maku was in the room while we were talking. Now I can see why Maku disappeared after dinner and did not return.” 

“But how did Poritol lose the bill?” asked Orme. 

The girl laughed. “It was really ridiculous. He over-speeded and was caught by one of those roadside motor-car traps, ten or twelve miles out in the country. They timed him, and stopped him by a bar across the road. From what the detective says, I judge he was frightened almost to speechlessness. He may have thought that he was being arrested for stealing the car. When they dragged him before the country justice, who 68 was sitting under a tree near by, he was white and trembling. 

68

“They fined him ten dollars. He had in his pocket only eleven dollars and sixty-three cents, and the marked bill was nearly half of the sum. He begged them to let him go—offered them his watch, his ring, his scarf-pin—but the justice insisted on cash. Then he told them that the bill had a formula on it that was valuable to him and no one else. 

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