the
date he mentioned in the ad, midnight on Tuesday, December third, was
to inform Weintraub (of whose identity he was still ignorant) when
Metzger was to go on board the ship. Weintraub had been instructed by
their spy organization to watch the LOST and FOUND ads."

"Think of it!" cried Titania.

"Well," continued Aubrey, "all this may not be 100 per cent. accurate,
but after putting things together this is how it dopes out. Weintraub,
who was as canny as they make them, saw he'd have to get into direct
touch with Metzger. He sent him word, on the Friday, to come over to
see him and bring the book. Metzger, meanwhile, had had a bad fright
when I spoke to him in the hotel elevator. He returned the book to the
shop that night, as Mrs. Mifflin remembers. Then, when I stopped in at
the drug store on my way home, he must have been with Weintraub. I
found the Cromwell cover in the drug-store bookcase--why Weintraub was
careless enough to leave it there I can't guess--and they spotted me
right away as having some kind of hunch. So they followed me over the
Bridge and tried to get rid of me. It was because I got that cover on
Friday night that Weintraub broke into the shop again early Sunday
morning. He had to have the cover of the book to bind his bomb in."

Aubrey was agreeably conscious of the close attention of his audience.
He caught Titania's gaze, and flushed a little.

"That's pretty nearly all there is to it," he said. "I knew that if
those guys were so keen to put me out of the way there must be
something rather rotten on foot. I came over to Brooklyn the next
afternoon, Saturday, and took a room across the street."

"And we went to the movies," chirped Titania.

"The rest of it I think you all know--except Metzger's visit to my
lodgings that night." He described the incident. "You see they were
trailing me pretty close. If I hadn't happened to notice the cigar at
my window I guess he'd have had me on toast. Of course you know how
wrongly I doped it out. I thought Mr. Mifflin was running with them,
and I owe him my apology for that. He's laid me out once on that
score, over in Philadelphia."

Humourously, Aubrey narrated how he had sleuthed the bookseller to
Ludlow Street, and had been worsted in battle.

"I think they counted on disposing of me sooner or later," said Aubrey.
"They framed up that telephone call to get Mr. Mifflin out of town.
The point in having Metzger come to the books