nonball, to take me to the station, and
he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case.

"Guard them with your life," he warned me. "They are more precious
than honor. Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep
valuables. I never keep any. I'll not be happy until I see Gentleman
Andy doing the lockstep."

He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match
on the mahogany bed post with one movement.

"Where's the Pirate?" he demanded. The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs.
Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled--and libeled--because of a
ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering nose. I
quietly closed the door into the hall.

"Keep your voice down, Richey," I said. "She is looking for the evening
paper to see if it is going to rain. She has my raincoat and an umbrella
waiting in the hall."

The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the
window. He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that
represented the wall of the house next door.

"It's raining now," he said over his shoulder, and closed the window
and the shutters. Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was
watching me, his hands idly in his pockets.

"Who lives next door?" he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a pause.
I was packing my razor.

"House is empty," I returned absently. "If the landlord would put it in
some sort of shape---"

"Did you put those notes in your pocket?" he broke in.

"Yes." I was impatient. "Along with my certificates of registration,
baptism and vaccination. Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat
to get them."

"Well, I would move them, if I were you. Somebody in the next house was
confoundedly anxious to see where you put them. Somebody right at that
window opposite."

I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting
them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom. McKnight watched me
uneasily.

"I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble," he said, as I
locked the alligator bag. "Darned if I like starting anything important
on Friday."

"You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day," I
retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday. "And if you knew the owner
of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that
window he is paying rent for the privilege."

Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall.

"Did Mr. McKnight brin