d
fallen in--and Johnson Boller, struggling into his bathrobe, stumbled to
the door and burst into the brilliant living-room.

In the center of the room, flattened upon the floor, was Anthony's
substantial little desk. Papers were around it and blotters and letters
without number, and the old-fashioned inkwell had shot off its top and
set a black streak across the beautiful Oriental carpet.

Two chairs were on their sides, also, but the striking detail of the
picture was furnished by David Prentiss. That young man was sprawled
crazily, just beyond the desk, and beside him, holding him down with
both hands, was Wilkins, tastefully arrayed in the flowered silk pajamas
Anthony had discarded last year as too vivid.

"I've got him, sir!" Wilkins' pale lips reported, as his master
appeared. "I have him fast."

"What'd he do?" Johnson Boller asked quickly. "Pull a knife on you,
Wilkins?"

"He'd not time for that, sir," Wilkins said grimly. "I think he stumbled
over a chair and took the desk along with him, trying to get out. I
always wake just as the clock strikes two, and stay awake ten minutes or
more, and that's how I came to hear him and get him. He was just getting
to his feet when I ran in and turned on the lights, and he----"

"Let him up!" Anthony said sharply.

"But don't let go of him!" Johnson Boller said harshly. "I missed the
time by an hour, but I was right otherwise, Anthony. He's got the silver
and your stick-pins and rings on him, and--what the dickens is he
wearing?"

Silence fell upon them for a little, as David struggled to his feet and
looked about with a strange, trancelike stare--for there was some reason
for Mr. Boller's query.

David, apparently, had dressed for the street. He wore shoes not less
than five sizes too long; he wore a bright brown sack coat which came
almost to his knees, and blue trousers which were turned up until they
all but met the coat. He had acquired a rakish felt hat, too, which
rested mainly on the back of his neck.

"He got them clothes out of the junk-closet at the end of the corridor,
sir," Wilkins said quite breathlessly. "He must have been roaming the
place quite a bit, to have found them, and----"

"What were you trying to do, David?" Anthony snapped.

"I don't know, sir," David said vaguely, passing a hand over his eyes in
a manner far too dramatic to be convincing.

"Where did you get those clothes?"

"I have no idea, sir," David murmured.

"Don't lie