he cipher message, it will--"

"The Department has full faith in your diagnosis, Harleston. You're the
surgeon; you prescribe the treatment and I'll see that it is followed.
Now drive on with the story."

"It begins with a letter, a photograph, a handkerchief, three American
Beauty roses--all in the cab of the sleeping horse--"

"God bless my soul!" exclaimed the Secretary.

"--at one o'clock on Massachusetts Avenue and Eighteenth Street."

"Is the horse still asleep, Harleston?"

"The horse awoke, and straightway went to his stand in Dupont Circle!"
Harleston laughed and related the incidents of the night and early
morning, finishing his account in the Secretary's private office.

"Most amazing!" the latter reflected, eyes half-closed as though seeing
a mental picture of it all.

Then he picked up the photograph and studied it awhile.

"So this is the wonderful Madeline Spencer--who came so near to throwing
our friend, the King of Valeria, out of his Archdukeship, and later from
his throne. I remember the matter most distinctly. I was a friend of the
Dalberg family of the Eastern Shore, and of Armand Dalberg himself." He
paused, and looked again at the picture. "H-u-m! She is a very beautiful
woman, Harleston, a very beautiful woman! I think I have never seen her
equal; certainly never her superior. These dark-haired, classic
featured ones for me, Harleston; the pale blonde type does not appeal.
The peroxides come of that class." Again the photograph did duty. "I
could almost wish that she were the lost lady of the cab of the sleeping
horse--so that I might see her in the flesh. I've never seen her, you
know."

Harleston smoothed back a smile. The Secretary too was getting
sentimental over the lady, and he had never seen her; though he had
known of her rare doings; and those doings had, it appeared, had their
natural effect of enveloping her in a glamour of fascination because of
what she had done.

"You've seen her?" the Secretary asked.

"I've known her since she was Madeline Cuthbert. Since then she's had a
history. Possibly, taken altogether she's a pretty bad lot. And she is
not only beautiful; she's fascinating, simply fascinating; it's a rare
man, a very rare man, who can be with her ten minutes and not succumb to
her manifold attractions of mind and body."

"You have succumbed?" the Secretary smiled.

"I have--twenty times at least. You'll join the throng, if she has
occasion to need you, and g