t use our brains to get you out of this."

They escaped the journalists by closing the door of the office on them.
Then the clerk was summoned, and solved the first difficulty by
revealing a back-stairs exit by way of the basement. An attendant was
sent to Curtis's room, to pack a grip with some clothes and linen, and,
by adroit maneuvering, the whole party got away from the hotel.

Steingall insisted on interviewing Lady Hermione that night. He
pointed out, reasonably enough, that she might possess a good deal of
valuable information concerning Count Ladislas Vassilan; if, as Curtis
believed was the case, she had already retired to rest, she must be
aroused. The hour was not so late, and Vassilan's movements in New
York might be elucidated by knowledge of his previous career.

So Curtis announced that his bride was installed in the Plaza Hotel,
and, while he and Devar escaped through the cellars, Steingall took
Uncle Horace and Aunt Louisa boldly through the lobby. A taxi was
waiting there, and he gave the driver the address of the police
headquarters downtown, but re-directed him when they were safe from
pursuit, and the three, so oddly assorted as companions, arrived at the
Plaza within a minute of the two young men.

Steingall went straight to the telephone room, and Curtis ascended to
his suite of apartments. He knocked at Hermione's door, and her "Yes,
who is there?" came with disconcerting speed. Evidently, she was far
from being asleep yet.

"It is I--dear," said Curtis, in whom the mere sense of being near his
"wife" induced a species of vertigo. Indeed, he was horribly nervous,
since he could not form the slightest notion as to the manner in which
she would receive the latest news of de Courtois.

The door was opened without delay, and Hermione appeared, dressed
exactly as she was when he bade her farewell.

"I am sorry to disturb you," he said, "but it cannot be helped. Things
have been happening since I left you."

Her face blanched, but she tried to smile, though the corners of her
mouth drooped piteously.

"They are not here already?" she cried, and he had no occasion to ask
who "they" were.

"No," he said, with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. "The fact
is I--I--have brought some friends to see you. That is, some of them
will, I hope, be your very good friends--my uncle and aunt, and young
Howard Devar, whom I spoke about earlier. There is a detective, too--a
very decent fell