s on the point of embarking and he waited.

"You want to see me?" he asked.

"Just a moment, Mr. Secretary, since you're here," Harleston responded.
"I came particularly to see Carpenter. There has been a plenty doing in
that matter, but nothing worthy of report to you--except one thing.
Madeline Spencer is in town."

"The devil she is!" exclaimed the Secretary.

"And as beautiful, as fascinating, as sinuous, and as young as ever."

"She must be a vision."

"She is--and an extraordinarily dangerous vision."

"Only to you impressible chaps!" the Secretary confided. "She is not
dangerous to me, be she ever so beautiful, and fascinating, and
sinuous, and young. When will you present me?"

"When do you suggest?" Harleston asked.

"Tomorrow, at four?"

"If I can get the lady, certainly."

"Later she'll get me, you think!" the Secretary laughed.

"If she is so minded she'll get you, I have not the least doubt,"
Harleston shrugged.

"Then here is where you have your doubt resolved into moonshine."

"Very well; it won't be the first time I've had the pleasure of seeing
moonshine. I'll try to make the appointment for tomorrow at four."

"Self-opinionated old mountebank," Harleston thought, as he went down
the corridor to Carpenter's office. "I shall enjoy watching Spencer make
all kinds of an ass of him. 'You impressible chaps!--not dangerous to
me!' Oh, Lord, the patronizing bumptiousness of the man!... Have you
anything for me, Carpenter?" he asked, as he entered the latter's
office.

The Fifth Assistant was sitting with his feet on his desk, a cigar in
his mouth, his gaze fixed on vacancy.

"Damn your old cipher, Harleston!" he remarked, coming out of his
abstraction. "It's bothered me more than anything I've tackled for
years. I can't make head nor tail of it. Its very simplicity--or seeming
simplicity--is what's tantalizing. It's in French. Of so much I feel
sure, though I've little more than intuition to back it. As you know,
this Vigenerie, or Blocked-Out Square, cipher is particularly difficult.
I've tried every word and phrase that's ever been used or discovered. We
have a complete record of them. None fit this case. Can you give me
anything additional that will be suggestive?"

"Here's what I've brought," Harleston replied--and related, so far as
they seemed pertinent, the incidents of the previous afternoon and
evening.

"A French message in an English envelope, inclosing an unmounted
photogra