there are many
roads leading to Switzerland."

"But few pleasant roads, m'sieur. I have come to Montreux by all manner
of ways--from Paris, through Pontarlier, through Ostend, Brussels,
through the Hook of Holland and Amsterdam, but Paris is the only way for
the man who is flying to this beautiful land."

The man at the table said nothing, scanning the menu carefully. He
looked tired as one who had taken a very long journey.

"It may interest you to know," he said, after he had given his order and
as Giovanni was turning away, "that I came by the longest route. Tell
me, Giovanni, have you a man called Merrill staying at the hotel?"

"No, m'sieur," said the other. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Mr. Rex Holland smiled.

"In a sense he is a friend, in a sense he is not," he said flippantly,
and offered no further enlightenment, although Giovanni waited with a
deferential cock of his head.

Later, when he had finished his modest dinner, he strolled into the one
long street of the town, returning to the writing room of the hotel with
a number of papers which included the visitors' list, a publication
printed in English, and which, as it related the comings and goings of
visitors, not only to Lausanne, Montreux, and Teritet, but also to Evian
and Geneva, enjoyed a fair circulation. He sat at the table, and,
drawing a sheet of paper from the rack, wrote, addressed an envelope to
Frank Merrill, esquire, Hotel de France, Geneva, slipped it into the
hotel pillar box, and went to bed.

"There's a letter here for Frank," said the girl. "I wonder if it is
from his agent."

She examined the envelope, which bore the Montreux postmark.

"I should imagine it is," said Saul Arthur Mann.

"Well, I am going to open it, anyway," said the girl. "Poor Frank! He
will be in a state of suspense."

She tore open the envelope, and took out a letter. Mr. Mann saw her face
go white, and the letter trembled in her hand. Without a word she passed
it to him, and he read:

"Dear Frank Merrill," said the letter. "Give me another month's grace
and then you may tell the whole story. Yours, Rex Holland."

Saul Arthur Mann stared at the letter with open mouth.

"What does it mean?" asked the girl in a whisper.

"It means that Merrill is shielding somebody," said the other. "It
means--"

Suddenly his face lit up with excitement.

"The writing!" he gasped.

Her eyes followed his, and for a moment she did not understand; then,
with a lig