gold: when he woke, fretful
and sweatful. He glanced at his watch and got up promptly: the hour
approached eleven. Diving into a bathrobe, he turned the water on for
his bath, trotted to the front room and discovered the evasion of Mr.
Iff. This, however, failed to surprise him. Iff was, after all, not
bound to sit tight until Staff gave him leave to stir.

He rang for Mrs. Shultz and ordered breakfast. Then he bathed and began
to dress. It was during this latter ceremony that he found his pockets
turned inside out and their contents displayed upon his bureau.

This was a shock, especially when he failed to find his bill-fold at the
first sweep. The bottom dropped out of the market for confidence in the
integrity of Mr. Iff and conceit in the perspicacity of Mr. Staff. He
saw instantly how flimsy had been the tissue of falsehood wherewith the
_soi-disant_ Mr. Iff had sought to cloak his duplicity, how egregiously
stupid had been his readiness to swallow that extraordinary yarn. The
more he considered, the more he marvelled. It surpassed belief--his
asininity did; at least _he_ wouldn't have believed he could be so
easily fooled. He felt like kicking himself--and longed unutterably for
a chance to kick his erstwhile guest.

In the midst of this transport he found himself staring incredulously at
the envelope on the dresser. He snatched it up, tore it open and removed
three pieces of white paper. Two of them were crisp and tough and
engraved on one side with jet-black ink. The third bore this
communication:

"MY DEAR MR. STAFF:--Your bill-fold's in your waistcoat
pocket, where you left it last night. It contained $385 when I
found it. It now contains $200. I leave you by way of security
Bank of England notes to the extent of L40. There'll be a bit
of change, one way or the other--I'm too hurried to calculate
which.

"The exchange manager has just called up. The interrupted call
has been traced back to the Hotel St. Simon in 79th Street, W.
I have called the St. Regis; neither Miss Searle nor Mrs.
Ilkington has registered there. I have also called the St.
Simon; both ladies are there. Your hearing must be
defective--or else Miss S. didn't know where she was at.

"I'm off to line my inwards with food and decorate my outwards
with purple and fine underlinen. After which I purpose minding
my own business for a few hours or days, as the circumst