as a legal document. I wonder what it is?"

"Ah!" I said. "I wonder!" And the three of us looked at each other in
sheer bewilderment.

"The reason the papers are all upset is because they were evidently in
search of some blank form or other, which they hoped to find," remarked
my friend. "As you say, the whole affair was most carefully and
ingeniously planned."

We crossed the great sunlit piazza together and entered the Questura,
that sun-blanched old palace with its long cool loggia where the sentry
paces day and night. The Chief of Police, whom we saw, had no further
information. The mysterious yacht had not put in at any Italian port.
From him, however, we learned the name of the detective who had seen the
two strangers leave Leghorn by the early morning train, and an hour
afterwards the police-officer, a black-eyed man short of stature, but of
an intelligent type, sat in the Consulate replying to our questions.

"As far as I could make out, signore," he said, "the man was an
Englishman, wearing a soft black felt hat and a suit of dark blue serge.
He had hair just turning gray, a small dark mustache and rather high
cheek-bones. In his hand he carried a small bag of tan leather of that
square English shape. He seemed in no hurry, for he was calmly smoking a
cigarette as he went across to the ticket office."

"And his companion?" asked the Consul.

"She was in black. Rather tall and slim. Her hair was fair, I noticed,
but she wore a black veil which concealed her features."

"Was she young or old?"

"Young--from her figure," replied the police agent. "As she passed me
her eyes met mine, and I thought I saw a strange fixed kind of glare in
them--the look of a woman filled with some unspeakable horror."

Next day the town of Leghorn awoke to find itself gay with bunting, the
Italian and English flags flying side by side everywhere, and the
Consular standard flapping over the Consulate in the piazza. In the
night the British Mediterranean fleet, cruising down from Malta, had
come into the roadstead, and at the signal from the flagship had
maneuvered and dropped anchor, forming a long line of gigantic
battleships, swift cruisers, torpedo-boat destroyers, torpedo-boats,
despatch-boats, and other craft extending for several miles along the
coast.

In the bright morning sunlight the sight was both picturesque and
imposing, for from every vessel flags were flying, and ever and anon the
great battleship of the Adm