upon a bell shrilled somewhere in the dark backwards of
the establishment. "Deposit...?" he suggested, turning back.

P. Sybarite disbursed a golden double-eagle; and to the operator who,
roused by the bell, presently drifted out of the shadows, gaping and
rubbing his eyes, he promised a liberal tip for haste.

In two minutes he was rolling out of the garage, ensconced in the body
of a luxurious and high-powered touring machine which he strongly
suspected to be somebody's private car lawlessly farmed out while its
owner slept.

The twilight was now stronger, if still dull and as cold as the air it
coloured, rendering P. Sybarite grateful for Peter Kenny's inverness
as the car surged spiritedly up the deserted avenue, its disdain for
speed regulations ignored by the string of yawning peg-post
cops--almost the only human beings in sight.

Town was indeed deep sunk in lethargy at that small hour; the
traditional milk-wagon itself seemed to have been caught napping. With
one consent residence and shop and sky-scraping hotel blinked
apathetically at the flying car; then once more turned and slept. Even
the Bizarre had forgotten P. Sybarite--showed at least no sign of
recognition as he scurried past.

A curious sense of illusion troubled the little man. The glamour of
the night was gone and with it all that had lent semblance of
plausibility to his incredible career; daylight forced all back into
confused and distorted perspective, like the pageant of some fantastic
and disordered dream uncertainly recalled long hours after waking.

As for himself, in his absurd attire and bound upon his ambiguous
errand, he was all out of the picture--horribly suggestive of an
addled sparrow who had stayed up all night on purpose to cheat some
legitimately early bird out of a chimerical first worm....

Self-conscious and ill at ease, he presented himself to the amused
inspection of the night force in the office of the Plaza, made his
halting enquiry, and received the discounted assurance that Miss
Blessington, though a known and valued patron of the house, was not
then its guest.

Convinced, as he had been from the moment that the words "two-thirty,"
falling from the lips of the Bizarre's house detective, had made him
alive to his terrible oversight, that this would be the outcome at the
Plaza, he turned away, sobered, outwitted, and miserably at a loss to
guess what next to do.

Gloomily he paused with a hand on the open door of