big illuminated
clock that it was nearly half-past eleven.

I crossed back over Broadway, at last, and turned down Twenty-third
Street in the direction of the Marathon, when, just at the corner, I
came face to face with three men as they swung around the corner in
the same direction, and, with a little start, I recognised Grady and
Simmonds, with M. Pigot between them. Evidently Grady had felt it
incumbent upon himself to make good his promise in the most liberal
manner, and to display the wonders of the Great White Way from end to
end--the ceremony no doubt involving the introduction of the stranger
to a number of typical American drinks--and the result of all this
was that Grady's legs wobbled perceptibly. As a matter of racial
comparison, I glanced at M. Pigot's, but they seemed in every way
normal.

"Hello, Lester," said Simmonds, in a voice which showed that he had
not wholly escaped the influences of the evening's celebration; and
even Grady condescended to nod, from which I inferred that he was
feeling very unusually happy.

"Hello, Simmonds," I answered, and, as I turned westward with them,
he dropped back and; fell into step beside me.

"Piggott is certainly a wonder," he said. "A regular sport--wanted to
see everything and taste everything. He says Paris ain't in the same
class with this town."

"Where are you going now?" I asked.

"We're going round to the station. Piggott says he's got a sensation
up his sleeve for us--it's got something to do with that cabinet."

"With the cabinet?"

"Yes--that shiny thing Godfrey got me to lock up in a cell."

"Simmonds," I said, seriously, "does Godfrey know about this?"

"No," said Simmonds, looking a little uncomfortable. "I told Grady we
ought to 'phone him to come up, but the chief got mad and told me to
mind my own business. Godfrey's been after him, you know, for a long
time."

"Suppose I 'phone him," I suggested. "There'd be no objection to
that, would there?"

"_I_ won't object," said Simmonds, "and I don't know who else will,
since nobody else will know about it."

"All right. And drag out the preliminaries as long as you can, to
give him a chance to get up here."

Simmonds nodded.

"I'll do what I can," he agreed, "but I don't see what good it will
do. The chief won't let him in, even if he does come up."

"We'll have to leave that to Godfrey. But he ought to be told. He's
responsible for the cabinet being where it is."

"I know he is, an