tly.

Hood lifted his hand deprecatingly.

"Please don't!" he remarked soothingly. "With the tinkle of a bell you
can call your man and have me bounced. I repacked my bag after taking a
bath in your very comfortable guest-room, and we can part immediately.
But let us be sensible, Deering; just between ourselves, don't you really
need me?"

His tone was ingratiating, his manner the kindest. Deering had walked the
streets for two days trying to bring himself to the point of confessing
his plight to one of a score of loyal friends--men he had known from
prep-school days, and on through college: active, resourceful, wealthy
young fellows who would risk much to help him--and yet in his fear and
misery he had shrunk from approaching them. Hood, he was now convinced,
was not a detective come to arrest him; in fact his guest's sympathies
and connections seemed to lie on the other side of the law's barricade.

They had coffee in the living-room, where Hood, inspired by specimens of
the work of several of the later French painters, discussed art with
sophistication. Deering observed him intently. There was something
immensely attractive in Hood's face; his profile, clean-cut as a cameo,
was thoroughly masculine; his head was finely moulded, and his gray eyes
were frank and responsive.

"It's possible," said Deering, after a long silence in which Hood smoked
meditatively, "that you may be able to help me."

On a sudden impulse he rose and put out his hand.

"Thank you," said Hood gravely, "but don't tell me unless you really want
to."

II

"So after all the bother of stealing two hundred thousand dollars' worth
of negotiable securities you _lost_ them!" Hood remarked when Deering
ended his recital.

Deering frowned and nodded. Not only had he told his story to this utter
stranger, but he had found infinite relief in doing so.

"Let us go over the points again," said Hood calmly. "You set down your
suitcase containing two hundred K. & L. Terminal 5's in the Grand Central
Station, turned round to buy a ticket to Boston, and when you picked up
the bag it was the wrong one! Such instances are not rare; the strong
family resemblance between suitcases has caused much trouble in this
world. Only the other day a literary friend told me the magazine editors
have placed a ban on mixed suitcases as a fictional device; but of course
that doesn't help us any in this affair. I've known a few professional
suitcase lifters.