hreatened to kill
him."

"Now look here, Captain--" broke in Gladwin, making furious, yet vain,
gestures at Bateato.

"Silence!" Captain Stone cut him off again.

"I admire this chap's nerve, Captain," laughed the thief. "It's
monumental. He very nearly succeeded in bluffing Officer Phelan, but I
guess you can take care of him all right--I must hurry off and get an
expert to repair the damage done to these valuable paintings. Of
course, you'll leave a man or two on guard."

Once more he gathered up his stick and overcoat and once more his exit
was blocked--this time by Whitney Barnes.

It was only natural for that young man to misread the situation and
conceive that Mrs. Elvira Burton had succeeded in her object of
arresting his friend. So he blurted breathlessly:

"By Jove, Travers, I see I'm too late. I've been all over the city
trying to warn you--I knew the police were on your track."

"Who the devil are you?" Captain Stone cut in on him.

"Another of the gang," responded the thief promptly. "He's got some
story trumped up that he thinks will get him off."

"Well, we'll let him tell it then, and you"--indicating the
thief--"had better wait and hear it."

There was something in the thief's manner that had fired a spark of
suspicion in the officer's mind.

"Not a word about the girl," Travers managed to whisper to Barnes in
the moment Captain Stone had turned to address the thief.

"I won't"--Barnes was replying when the Captain flung round on him.

"Stop that whispering, and come over here where I can get a good look
at you. Which one of these men is the real Gladwin?"

"He is, of course!" Barnes nodded toward his friend. The truth of the
situation had at last dawned upon him.

The thief smiled at Captain Stone and shook his head as if in
compliment of the nerve of some criminals.

"H'm," said the captain, turning to Barnes again. "And when did you
find out that there was some one else who claimed to be Travers
Gladwin?"

"Why," replied Barnes briskly, "when Gladwin and I were here together
this afternoon. The doorbell rang and two"----

His friend shook a vigorous warning. Barnes stopped.

"Yes, and two what?"

"Well, you see, the doorbell rang"----

"Yes, you said that!" snapped Captain Stone. "The doorbell rang and
two"----

"Yes, and two minutes after that it rang again--rang in an extraordinary
kind of way, you know, as if whoever was ringing it--was ringing it
because--because they