ake, and I turned in. I left
the car near a house that is there, and walked on to the edge of the
bluff.

"Moored to a breakwater below was a boat, and a man was standing near
her. I called out to him, asking what time it was. He answered, 'Don'
know,' and I knew him at once to be foreign and, probably, Japanese. So I
went down toward him.

"When he saw that I was coming, he got into the boat. He seemed to be
frightened and hurried, and I inferred that he was about to cast off, and
I called out that I was alone. At that he waited, but he did not get out
of the boat, and I was standing at the edge of the breakwater, just above
him, before he actually seemed to recognize me."

"Did you know him?" asked Orme.

"I never saw him before to my knowledge; but he made an exclamation which
indicated that he knew me."

"What did he do then?"

"I told him that I wished to talk to him about the papers. His answer was
that, if I would step down into the boat, he would talk. He said that he
would not leave the boat, and added that he was unwilling to discuss the
matter aloud. And I was foolish enough to believe his excuses. If he
wished to whisper, I said to myself, why, I would whisper. I never felt
so like a conspirator."

She paused to look up at the street-sign at the corner which they had
reached, and turned to the right on a shady avenue.

"Well, I got into the boat," she continued. "I told him that I--my father
was prepared to pay him a large sum of money for the papers, but he only
shook his head and said, 'No, no.' I named a sum; then a larger one; but
money did not seem to tempt him, though I made the second offer as large
as I dared.

"'How much _will_ you take then?' I asked at last. Instead of answering,
he bent down and started the motor, and then I noticed for the first time
that while I was talking we had been drifting away from the dock. I made
ready to jump overboard. We were near the shore, and the water was not
deep; anyway, I am a fair swimmer. But he turned and seized my wrists and
forced me down into the bottom of the boat. I struggled, but it was no
use, and when I opened my mouth to scream, he choked me with one hand and
with the other pulled from his pocket a handkerchief and tried to put it
in my mouth."

She gave a weary little laugh.

"It was such a crumpled, unclean handkerchief, I couldn't have stood it.
So I managed to gasp that, if he would only let me alone, I would keep
quiet."

"The