“Well, what did you see?” demanded Mr. Ridgeway as the man paused.

But he did not answer. He had been leaning on the edge of the massive table that Mr. Ridgeway used as a desk, and his fingers were feeling under the edge of the mahogany top. Suddenly he sank to his knees, and peered under the edge. Then he beckoned Mr. Ridgeway and Lawrence. Totally at a loss to imagine what O’Brien was doing, they too sank to their knees and looked under the table.

After a glance Mr. Ridgeway sprang to his feet and stared at O’Brien, who delivered a huge wink in the direction of the table. Then he started in as though he had only stopped talking long enough to clear his throat.

“Well, I peeked,” he said, “and there was a feller mauling that dirigible around and hacking at the propellers. I knew him at a glance; he was a dude I had discharged last week; wasn’t no good so I let him go, an’ he wanted to get even, so he done it by destroyin’ that machine. Of course I didn’t see his face, but I know the looks of his back,” added O’Brien, again winking at the table.

Mr. Ridgeway played up gallantly.

“I am glad you, found out who it was, O’Brien. Will you swear out a warrant? I am sorry about the dirigible, but I can get along without it for awhile. I am going out to the Golf Club now. Can I give either of you a lift?”

It seemed to Lawrence as though the two men were acting a part. He wondered if by any chance O’Brien had discovered one of the wonderful listening machines under the edge of the table. If that was so, their enemy must be close to them. He kept still, and let the others talk.

“No, sir; I am going right over to the police station and tell ’em what I know,” said O’Brien.

“I will have to go down to the Union Station and see about having my trunk sent up,” said Lawrence.

O’Brien nodded, as though pleased with the boy’s quickness of perception.

The three walked out, Mr. Ridgeway slamming the door sharply after him. Then instead of turning to the elevator, he started toward the back of the corridor, and reaching a small door inserted a key and opened it on a narrow, winding stairway walled into the building. It was nothing more than a perpendicular tunnel, with a narrow staircase winding through it. Leading O’Brien and Lawrence into this dimly lighted burrow, Mr. Ridgeway, with a sharp glance down the corridor, closed the door, locked it, and motioned O’Brien, who was ahead, to ascend the stairs. He went swiftly, the others close at his heels. Up and up he went, in obedience to a whispered word from Mr. Ridgeway, until a ground glass skylight marked the end of the stairway.

“Open!” whispered Mr. Ridgeway, and with a heave of his broad shoulder O’Brien pushed the skylight up and the three emerged on the pebbled roof of the building. Replacing the skylight, O’Brien looked at his superior for further orders.

“Well,” said Mr. Ridgeway, “I told you this morning, Lawrence, that I never liked to talk unless I was in the middle of a ten-acre lot. So they are listening, are they, O’Brien? Well, we are safe here, I should think. For this time, anyway. Let us get away from these chimneys.”

They walked out into the center of the great space that indicated the size of the building, and O’Brien, picking up a pebble and tossing it as he spoke, said:

“Well, sir, it looks as though there was more in the wind than we have been bargaining for. At all events, they have shown us their hand. It is not a coincidence that so many things have happened to hamper us, and the destruction in the shops and around the hangars that has appeared merely slovenly, sinful waste, has been the work of these same dirty miscreants. You are spotted, sir, sure as sure! Known to be working with the government, and instrumental in passing messages and what not along to wherever they ought to go. What are you going to do about it? If you will excuse me for saying it, sir, I think you ought to duck.”

“Duck? Duck where?” asked Mr. Ridgeway.

“Anywhere you like, say South America, or Alaska, or there’s good shooting up at Hudson Bay or was when I was in the Mounted Police of Canada.”

“Why should I duck?” demanded Mr. Ridgeway.

“Why, sir, they have you spotted, and you are too valuable a man to this country to take any chances. Suppose they send you West?”

“Kill me, you mean?” asked Mr. Ridgeway. “Well, O’Brien, thank you, but of course you know that I will stay and take my chance. If they have me spotted as you say, why, they will spend a good deal of time watching me, and that will leave the field clear for you and Lawrence. I will have to depend on you for a good deal. For one thing, I think we had better stage a small scrap, when we go downstairs, and I will discharge Lawrence, and will order you somewhere out of range. Then we will not meet without the greatest precautions. Where are you living, O’Brien?”

“I have a room and bath over in the southeast part of the city,” answered O’Brien.

“And you, Lawrence?”

“Up on the heights, sir. I like to be high.”

“I wish you were closer together,” mused Mr. Ridgeway.

“There are twin beds in my bedroom,” said Lawrence. “I wish you would come over there if you feel like it, Mr. O’Brien.”

“I accept without further parley,” said O’Brien. “Have you a telephone?”

“Yes,” said Lawrence.

“A regular swell, this lad,” said O’Brien, smiling. “Well, give Mr. Ridgeway our address, and let’s go down and get fired.”

They descended, reconnoitered the corridor carefully, and retraced their steps. Mr. Ridgeway entered his office alone and pressed the button on his desk. A boy appeared.

“I am expecting the young fellow who was with me this morning,” he said. “When he comes send him in.”

When Lawrence entered, he said severely,

“I have looked your credentials over, young man, and I find that in one or two regards they are not exactly what I desire. If there is anything I can do for you, I will be glad to do it, but I think our talk this morning will have to go for nothing!” He scuffled a few papers on his desk, and Lawrence, in as disappointed a tone as he could muster, said, “I am very sorry, sir. If you do not care for my services, I think I had better go back to Louisville. I have a standing offer of a job in the Aircraft Company’s shops there.”

As he spoke he noiselessly stepped forward and handed Mr. Ridgeway a paper with his telephone number on it.

“I insist on giving you a check for your railroad fare,” said Mr. Ridgeway, and took up a pen. What he wrote however was not the few magic words on a blank check, but the words, “Do not come here. Go to your apartment and stay there until ten tonight. Then both of you come to my address; skirt the wall until you find a gate. It will be unlocked. Follow the path at the right until you come to a porch with a French window. This will be open. Go into the room and wait there in the dark until I come.”

Lawrence nodded and handed the note back. Mr. Ridgeway touched a match to it, at the same time lighting a cigar so that the smell of burned paper would not be evident.

“Thank you, sir,” said Lawrence as though he had received a check. “And good-bye.”

The door closed, and he was alone. He sat staring at the edge of the table that hid the wicked little device which had handed him over into the hands of his enemies. No wonder plans had gone wrong! And now when so much hinged on the attitude of the country to the new Republic in Europe, and when the question of a mammoth loan was a matter of the most importance. As he mused, O’Brien jerked the door open and came in. Although O’Brien knew that the listener at the end of the tiny wire could not see him, he was by nature too much of an actor not to play the whole part. So he came in swaggering and approaching the table said truculently, “I come back to see you, sir, on something important.”

“Speak up, my man,” said Mr. Ridgeway. “I am rather busy, and hereafter you will send in your name.”

“I won’t send nothing,” said O’Brien, “unless I get a raise. I work twice as hard and long as any man at the field, and there are twenty planes to look over and keep in order, to say nothing of that dirigible that I will have to nurse back to health. I want more money.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mr. Ridgeway.

“No such thing!” growled O’Brien. “I know you! Take me or leave me!”

“It’s the latter then, O’Brien. I won’t be bullied by you or any other man,” said Mr. Ridgeway with a wink.

“Then that settles it,” said O’Brien. “Belave me when I say I am glad to be through with the likes of you, and if you will pay me what you owe I will get me a job where I am appreciated.”

He pointed toward the door with his stubby thumb, and Mr. Ridgeway, taking the hint, said, “Wait here and I will get your money,” and left the room.

As soon as the door closed O’Brien proceeded to abuse Mr. Ridgeway with all the fluency and fervor of his Irish tongue. Clearly and distinctly he addressed the air with a shower of choice phrases. He abused, he threatened, he raved, never once forgetting to hold his voice clear and steady as though addressing a stupid central on a buzzing line. According to his remarks, Mr. Ridgeway had insulted him. And he would get even. Over and over, he promised himself that he would get even. And then in the very middle of O’Brien’s finest flight of fancy, the door opened. Like turning off a top, O’Brien shut up, took what Mr. Ridgeway offered him and with a growl went out, slamming the door.

“Good riddance!” growled Mr. Ridgeway in his turn, then shaking his fist at the table, he too went out, springing the lock.

The rest of the afternoon he spent at the Chevy Chase golf course but it is likely that a worse game was never played over that course. The Honorable Theodore Miller, who had asked him to play, went through one fit of amazement and remorse into another. Amazement that such tops and foozles could come from a sane man, and remorse that he was obliged to waste the afternoon with such a being. Mr. Ridgeway did not notice that he was playing badly, but thumped and whacked away at the ball with a frowning look that Senator Miller took for an earnest desire to mend his stroke, but which in fact indicated utter absent-mindedness. Mr. Ridgeway knew that if he was being watched, he must put up an appearance of unconcern, and so the Golf Club.

But that night soon after dinner he spoke a few words over a private wire that led to the private room of a Certain Great Person, and soon Mr. Ridgeway was with him in close consultation. He came away looking more anxious than ever. He had learned that an answer had been drawn up for the young republic which needed help, and that another country close on its borders was ready to declare war if there seemed to be anything in the way of affiliation with the United States. Besides this, there reposed in the strongest of the strong boxes at the Treasury the crown jewels of a monarch who had sent them across for safe keeping six years ago, and who now wanted them returned at once to figure at the introduction of the Crown Prince on his twenty-first birthday.

The jewels and the state papers all must be delivered safely within two months. Otherwise.... Mr. Ridgeway did not like to think of the otherwise.

The jewels had no business in the country at all. They had been allowed to come over piecemeal, by the ill-advised judgment of one who should have known enough to keep clear of everything to do with little principalities with their many entanglements and jealousies. However, the deed was done.

Walking along Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Ridgeway called at The Willard to see a man who was then in Bolivia, and took a taxi to the Army and Navy Club. Then he went home, and to his own room, where he lighted all the lights and for a moment stood looking out the window before pulling down the blinds.

Then hastily he slipped off his shoes and felt his way down to the library, where he seated himself in his favorite chair beside the big table and, leaning back, gave himself up to his thoughts. He knew that it would be fifteen minutes or so before he could expect his visitors.

Suddenly a draft of air struck the back of his head. He knew that he had closed the door leading into the hall. He turned and half rose in his chair, but too late. Something descended with a sickening thud and without a groan he rolled over on the floor, a dead weight.

When later O’Brien and Lawrence entered by the window, as they had been told, they sat down on a couple of chairs that they were able to find in the darkness and proceeded to wait. But O’Brien was like a hound. He sensed disaster. Leaning close to Lawrence, he whispered, “There is something wrong here. I can smell it. I am going to light up.” With the words, he pressed on his electric searchlight, and slowly turned the brilliant ray about the room. What he saw caused him to leap to the window, lower the blind, and then switch on the big ceiling light.

Half under the table lay a tumbled figure. All the drawers were dragged out and ransacked and scattered papers which had been hastily unfolded and read were scattered everywhere.

“Is he dead?” gasped Lawrence.

O’Brien listened to Mr. Ridgeway’s heart. “Niver a bit! Sure he’s coming round pretty quick belike. What’s in that vase of posies? Wather? Gimme!”

He turned the big vase over on the unconscious man, and while nearly drowning him, it brought him to consciousness with a gasp. He looked up.

“Don’t rise, sir!” begged O’Brien. “Lay still now and collect your thoughts. Golly, that was a crack! I told you what would happen, didn’t I then? You are needing a nurse, and a steel jacket and a tin lid like the good old times of the late war if so be you are going to get tapped like this.”

In a few minutes Mr. Ridgeway was able to sit up, and with a rueful look gazed around at the disordered room. With a little help he got into his chair, and sighed. O’Brien, as though he had always been an inmate of the house, went through the dining-room, and beyond in a little breakfast room found a percolator all ready for breakfast. In a jiffy he had the coffee ready, and returned to Mr. Ridgeway with a steaming cup which he insisted on him drinking. The hot liquid seemed to revive Mr. Ridgeway, and presently he sat up, asking:

“Well, O’Brien and Lawrence, what part did you play in the late unpleasantness?”