ely, and Arnold would have
plenty of time to get back."

"What about your own dinner?" I asked curiously.

"Sir," he said pompously, "I have given you a wrong estimate of Wilson
Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even obtrude
itself on his mind at such a time as this."

He was a frail little man, and to-night he looked pale with heat and
over-exertion.

"Did you have any luncheon?" I asked.

He was somewhat embarrassed at that.

"I--really, Mr. Blakeley, the events of the day were so engrossing--"

"Well," I said, "I'm not going to see you drop on the floor from
exhaustion. Just wait a minute."

I went back to the pantry, only to be confronted with rows of locked
doors and empty dishes. Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, however, I
found two unattractive looking cold chops, some dry bread and a piece
of cake, wrapped in a napkin, and from its surreptitious and generally
hang-dog appearance, destined for the coachman in the stable at the
rear. Trays there were none--everything but the chairs and tables seemed
under lock and key, and there was neither napkin, knife nor fork to be
found.

The luncheon was not attractive in appearance, but Hotchkiss ate his
cold chops and gnawed at the crusts as though he had been famished,
while he told his story.

"I had been there only a few minutes," he said, with a chop in one hand
and the cake in the other, "when Bronson rushed out and cut across the
street. He's a tall man, Mr. Blakeley, and I had had work keeping close.
It was a relief when he jumped on a passing car, although being well
behind, it was a hard run for me to catch him. He had left the lady.

"Once on the car, we simply rode from one end of the line to the other
and back again. I suppose he was passing the time, for he looked at his
watch now and then, and when I did once get a look at us face it made
me--er--uncomfortable. He could have crushed me like a fly, sir."

I had brought Mr. Hotchkiss a glass of wine, and he was looking better.
He stopped to finish it, declining with a wave of his hand to have it
refilled, and continued:

"About nine o'clock or a little later he got off somewhere near
Washington Circle. He went along one of the residence streets there,
turned to his left a square or two, and rang a bell. He had been
admitted when I got there, but I guessed from the appearance of the
place that it was a boarding-house.

"I waited a few minutes and rang the bell. Whe