When Orme answered the knock at the door a singular young man stood at the threshold. He was short, wiry, and very dark. His nose was long and complacently tilted at the end. His eyes were small and very black. His mouth was a wide, uncertain slit. In his hand he carried a light cane and a silk hat of the flat-brimmed French type. And he wore a gray sack suit, pressed and creased with painful exactness.

“Come in, Senhor Poritol,” said Orme, motioning toward a chair.

The little man entered, with short, rapid steps. He drew from his pocket a clean pocket-handkerchief, which he unfolded and spread out on the surface of the table. Upon the handkerchief he carefully placed his hat and then, after an ineffectual effort to make it stand against the table edge, laid his cane on the floor.

Not until all this ceremony had been completed did he appear to notice Orme. But now he turned, widening his face into a smile and extending his hand, which Orme took rather dubiously—it was supple and moist.

“Oh, this is Mr. Orme, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Orme, freeing himself from the unpleasant handshake.

“Mr. Robert Orme?”

“Yes, that is my name. What can I do for you?”

For a moment Senhor Poritol appeared to hover like a timid bird; then he seated himself on the edge of a chair, only the tips of his toes touching the floor. His eyes danced brightly.

“To begin with, Mr. Orme,” he said, “I am charmed to meet you—very charmed.” He rolled his “r’s” after a fashion that need not be reproduced. “And in the second place,” he continued, “while actually I am a foreigner in your dear country, I regard myself as in spirit one of your natives. I came here when a boy, and was educated at your great University of Princeton.”

“You are a Portuguese—I infer from your name,” said Orme.

“Oh, dear, no! Oh, no, no, no!” exclaimed Senhor Poritol, tapping the floor nervously with his toes. “My country he freed himself from the Portuguese yoke many and many a year ago. I am a South American, Mr. Orme—one of the poor relations of your great country.” Again the widened smile. Then he suddenly became grave, and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “But this is not the business of our meeting, Mr. Orme.”

“No?” inquired Orme.

“No, my dear sir. I have come to ask of you about the five-dollar bill which you received in the hat-shop this afternoon.” He peered anxiously. “You still have it? You have not spent it?”

“A marked bill, was it not?”

“Yes, yes. Where is it, my dear sir, where is it?”

“Written across the face of it were the words, ‘Remember person you pay this to.’”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“And on the back of it——”

“On the back of it!” gasped the little man.

“Was a curious cryptogram.”

“Do not torture me!” exclaimed Senhor Poritol. “Have you got it?” His fingers worked nervously.

“Yes,” said Orme slowly, “I still have it.”

Senhor Poritol hastily took a fresh five-dollar bill from his pocket. “See,” he said, jumping to the floor, “here is another just as good a bill. I give this to you in return for the bill which was paid to you this afternoon.” He thrust the new bill toward Orme, and waved his other hand rhetorically. “That, and that alone, is my business with you, dear sir.”

Orme’s hand went to his pocket. The visitor watched the motion eagerly, and a grimace of disappointment contracted his features when the hand came forth, holding a cigar-case.

“Have one,” Orme urged.

In his anxiety the little man almost danced. “But, sir,” he broke forth, “I am in desperate hurry. I must meet a friend. I must catch a train.”

“One moment,” interrupted Orme. “I can’t very well give up that bill until I know a little better what it means. You will have to show me that you are entitled to it—and”—he smiled—“meantime you’d better smoke.”

Senhor Poritol sighed. “I can assure you of my honesty of purpose, sir,” he said. “I cannot tell you about it. I have not the time. Also, it is not my secret. This bill, sir, is just as good as the other one.”

“Very likely,” said Orme dryly. He was wondering whether this was some new counterfeiting dodge. How easily most persons could be induced to make the transfer!

A counterfeiter, however, would hardly work by so picturesque and noticeable a method, unless he were carefully disguised—hardly even then. Was Senhor Poritol disguised? Orme looked at him more closely. No, he could see where the roots of the coarse black hair joined the scalp. And there was not the least evidence of make-up on the face. Nevertheless, Orme did not feel warranted in giving up the marked bill without a definite explanation. The little man was a comic figure, but his bizarre exterior might conceal a dangerous plot. He might be a thief, an anarchist, anything.

“Please, my dear sir, please do not add to my already very great anxiety,” pleaded the visitor.

Orme spoke more decisively. “You are a stranger, Senhor Poritol. I don’t know what all this mystery conceals, but I can’t give you that bill unless I know more about it—and I won’t,” he added, as he saw Senhor Poritol open his mouth for further pleading.

“Very well,” sighed the little man. He hesitated for an instant, then added: “I do not blame you for insisting, and I suppose I must say to you everything that you demand. No, I do not smoke the cigar, please. But if you do not object—” He produced a square of cigarette paper and some tobacco from a silver-mounted pouch, and deftly rolled a cigarette with one hand, accepting a match from Orme with the other. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the smoke deeply, breathing it out through his nostrils.

“Well—” he hesitated, his eyes roving about the room as if in search of something—“Well, I will explain to you why I want the bill.”

Orme lighted a fresh cigar, and settled himself to hear the story. Senhor Poritol drew a second handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his damp brow.

“You must know, my very dear sir,” he began, “that I come from a country which is very rich in the resources of nature. In the unsettled interior are very great mineral deposits which are little known, and since the day when the great Vega made the first exploration there has been the belief that the Urinaba Mountains hide a great wealth in gold. Many men for three hundred years have risked their most precious lives to go look for it. But they have not found it. No, my dear sir, they have not found it until—But have patience, and you shall hear everything.

“A few days ago a countryman of mine sent word that he was about to die. He asked that I, his early friend, should come to him immediately and receive news of utmost importance. He was lying sick in the hotel of a small city in Wisconsin. He was a tobacco agent and he had been attacked by Death while he was on a business trip.

“Filled with the heartbroken hope to see him once more before he died, I went even as I was, to a train and made all haste to his bedside.”

“What was his name?” asked Orme.

“Lopez,” replied Senhor Poritol promptly; and Orme knew that the answer might as well have been Smith. But the little man returned quickly to his story.

“My friend had no strength left. He was, oh, so weak that I wept to see him. But he sent the doctor and the priest out of the room, and then—and then he whispered in my ear a secret. He had discovered rich gold in the Urinaba country. He had been trying to earn money to go back and dig up the gold. But, alas! now he was dying, and he wished to give the secret to me, his old friend.

“Tears streamed on my cheek.” Senhor Poritol’s eyes filled, seemingly at the remembrance. “But I took out my fountain-pen to write down the directions he wished to give. See—this was the pen.” He produced a gold-mounted tube from his waistcoat.

“I searched my pockets for a piece of paper. None could I discover. There was no time to be lost, for my friend was growing weaker, oh, very fast. In desperation I took a five-dollar bill, and wrote upon it the directions he gave me for finding the gold. Even as I finished it, dear Lopez breathed his last breath.”

Orme puffed at his cigar. “So the bill carries directions for finding a rich deposit in the Urinaba Mountains?”

“Yes, my dear sir. But you would not rob me of it. You could not understand the directions.”

“Oh, no.” Orme laughed. “I have no interest in South American gold mines.”

“Then accept this fresh bill,” implored Senhor Poritol, “and give me back the one I yearn for.”

Orme hesitated. “A moment more,” he said. “Tell me, how did you lose possession of the marked bill?”

The South American writhed in his chair and leaned forward eagerly. “That is the most distressing part of all,” he exclaimed. “I had left Chicago at a time when my presence in this great city was very important indeed. Nothing but the call from a dying friend would have induced me to go away. My whole future in this country depended upon my returning in time to complete certain business.

“So, after dear Lopez was dead, I rushed to the local railroad station. A train was coming in. I searched my pocket for my money to buy my ticket. All I could find was the five-dollar bill!

“It was necessary to return to Chicago; yet I could not lose the bill. A happy thought struck me. I wrote upon the face of it the words you have seen, and paid it to the ticket-agent. I called his attention to the writing and implored him to save the bill if he could until I returned, and if not, to be sure to remember the person he gave it to.”

Orme laughed.

“It does seem funny,” said Senhor Poritol, rolling another cigarette, “but you cannot imagine my most frantic desperation. I returned to Chicago and transacted my business. Then I hastened back to the Wisconsin city. Woe is me! The ticket-agent had paid the bill to a Chicago citizen. I secured the name of this man and finally found him at his office on La Salle Street. Alas! he, too, had spent the bill, but I tracked it from person to person, until now, my dear sir, I have found it? So——” he paused and looked eloquently at Orme.

“Do you know a man named Evans?” Orme asked.

Senhor Poritol looked at him in bewilderment.

“S. R. Evans,” insisted Orme.

“Why, no, dear sir—I think not—But what has that to do——?”

Orme pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “Oblige me, Senhor Poritol. Print in small capitals the name, ‘S. R. Evans.’”

Senhor Poritol was apparently reluctant. However, under the compulsion of Orme’s eye, he finally took out his fountain-pen and wrote the name in flowing script. He then pushed the paper back toward Orme, with an inquiring look.

“No, that isn’t what I mean,” exclaimed Orme. “Print it. Print it in capital letters.”

Senhor Poritol slowly printed out the name.

Orme took the paper, laying it before him. He then produced the coveted bill from his pocket-book. Senhor Poritol uttered a little cry of delight and stretched forth an eager hand, but Orme, who was busily comparing the letters on the paper with the letters on the bill, waved him back.

After a few moments Orme looked up. “Senhor Poritol,” he said, “why didn’t you write the secret on a time-table, or on your ticket, before you gave the bill to the agent?”

Senhor Poritol was flustered. “Why,” he said uncertainly, “I did not think of that. How can we explain the mistakes we make in moments of great nervousness?”

“True,” said Orme. “But one more point. You did not yourself write your friend’s secret on the bill. The letters which you have just printed are differently made.”

Senhor Poritol said nothing. He was breathing hard.

“On the other hand,” continued Orme, turning the bill over and eyeing the inscription on its face, “your mistake in first writing the name instead of printing it, shows me that you did write the words on the face of the bill.” He returned the bill to his pocket-book. “I can’t give you the bill,” he said. “Your story doesn’t hold together.”

With a queer little scream, the South American bounded from his chair and flung himself at Orme. He struck no blow, but clawed desperately at Orme’s pocket. The struggle lasted only for a moment. Orme, seizing the little man by the collar, dragged him, wriggling, to the door.

“Now get out,” said Orme. “If I find you hanging around, I’ll have you locked up.”

Senhor Poritol whispered: “It is my secret. Why should I tell you the truth about it? You have no right to know.”

Orme retained his hold. “I don’t like your looks, my friend,” he said. “There may have been reason why you should lie to me, but you will have to make things clear.” He considered. After all, he must make allowance; so he said: “Come back to-morrow with evidence that you are entitled to the bill, and you shall have it.” He released Senhor Poritol.

The little man had recovered his composure. He went back to the table and took up his hat and cane, refolding the handkerchief and slipping it into his pocket. Once more he was the Latin fop. He approached Orme, and his manner was deprecatory.

“My most abject apologies for attacking you, sir. I was beside myself. But if you will only permit me, I will bring up my friend, who is waiting below. He will, as you say, vouch for me.”

“Who is he?”

“A very, very distinguished man.”

Orme pondered. The adventure was opening up, and he felt inclined to see it through. “Bring him,” he said shortly.

When Senhor Poritol had disappeared Orme telephoned to the clerk. “Send me up a porter,” he ordered, “and have him stand just outside my door, with orders to enter if he hears any disturbance.” He waited at the door till the porter appeared, then told him to remain in a certain place until he was needed, or until the visitors left.

Senhor Poritol remained downstairs for several minutes. Evidently he was explaining the situation to his friend. But after a time Orme heard the clang of the elevator door, and in response to the knock that quickly followed, he opened his own door. At the side of his former visitor stood a dapper foreigner. He wore a long frock coat and carried a glossy hat, and his eyes were framed by large gold spectacles.

“This is the Senhor Alcatrante,” explained Senhor Poritol.

The newcomer bowed with suave dignity.

“Senhor Alcatrante? The name is familiar,” said Orme, smiling.

Poritol assumed an air. “He is the minister from my country to these United States.”

Orme understood. This was the wary South American diplomat whose name had lately been so prominent in the Washington dispatches. What was he doing in Chicago?

“I am glad to meet you,” said Orme.

Alcatrante smiled, displaying a prominent row of uneven teeth.

“My young friend, Poritol,” he began, “tells me that you have in your possession the record of a secret belonging to him. What that secret is, is immaterial to you and me, I take it. He is an honorable young man—excitable, perhaps, but well-meaning. I would suggest that you give him the five-dollar bill he desires, accepting from him another in exchange. Or, if you still doubt him, permit me to offer you a bill from my own pocket.” He drew out a fat wallet.

The situation appeared to be simplified. And yet Orme was dubious. There was mischief in the bill; so much he felt sure of. Alcatrante’s reputation was that of a fox, and as for Poritol, he was, to say the least, a person of uncertain qualities. Orme could not but admire the subtle manner in which Alcatrante sought delicately to limit his doubts to the mere possibility that Poritol was trying to pass spurious money. He decided not to settle the question at this moment.

“This seems to be rather a mixed-up affair, Senhor Alcatrante,” he said. “There is much more in it than appears. Call on me to-morrow morning, and you shall have my decision.”

Alcatrante and Poritol looked at each other. The minister spoke:

“Will you engage not to give the bill to anyone else in the interval?”

“I will promise that,” said Orme. “It is only fair. Yes, I will keep the bill until to-morrow morning.”

“One other suggestion,” continued Alcatrante. “You may not be willing to give up the bill, but is there any reason why you should refuse to let Senhor Poritol copy the writing that is on it?”

“Only my determination to think the whole matter over before I do anything at all,” Orme replied.

“But the bill came into your hands by chance,” insisted the minister. “The information means nothing to you, though obviously it means a great deal to my young friend, here. May I ask what right you have to deny this request?”

“What right?” Orme’s eyes narrowed. “My right is that I have the bill and the information, and I intend to understand the situation better before I give the information to anyone else.”

“But you recognized Senhor Poritol’s handwriting on the bill,” exclaimed the minister.

“On the face of it, yes. He did not write the abbreviations on the back.”

“Abbreviations!” exclaimed Poritol.

“Please let the matter rest till morning,” said Orme stubbornly. “I have told you just what I would do.”

Poritol opened his mouth, to speak, but Alcatrante silenced him with a frown. “Your word is sufficient, Mr. Orme,” he said. “We will call to-morrow morning. Is ten o’clock too early?”

“Not at all,” said Orme. “Doubtless I shall be able to satisfy you. I merely wish to think it over.”

With a formal bow, Alcatrante turned to the door and departed, Poritol following.

Orme strolled back to his window and stood idly watching the lights of the vessels on the lake. But his mind was not on the unfolded view before him. He was puzzling over this mystery in which he had so suddenly become a factor. Unquestionably, the five-dollar bill held the key to some serious problem.

Surely Alcatrante had not come merely as the friend of Poritol, for the difference in the station of the two South Americans was marked. Poritol was a cheap character—useful, no doubt, in certain kinds of work, but vulgar and unconvincing. He might well be one of those promoters who hang on at the edge of great projects, hoping to pick up a commission here and there. His strongest point was his obvious effort to triumph over his own insignificance, for this effort, by its comic but desperate earnestness, could not but command a certain degree of respect.

Alcatrante, on the other hand, was a name to make statesmen knit their brows. A smooth trouble-maker, he had set Europe by the ears in the matter of unsettled South American loans, dexterously appealing to the much-overworked Monroe Doctrine every time his country was threatened by a French or German or British blockade. But his mind was of no small caliber. He could hold his own not only at his own game of international chess, but in the cultured discussion of polite topics. Orme knew of him as a clever after-dinner speaker, a man who could, when he so desired, please greatly by his personal charm.

No, Alcatrante was no friend of Poritol’s; nor was it likely that, as protector of the interests of his countrymen, he would go so far as to accompany them on their errands unless much was at stake. Perhaps Poritol was Alcatrante’s tool and had bungled some important commission. It occurred to Orme that the secret of the bill might be connected with the negotiation of a big business concession in Alcatrante’s country. “S. R. Evans” might be trying to get control of rubber forests or mines—in the Urinaba Mountains, perhaps, after all.

In any event, he felt positive that the secret of the bill did not rightfully belong to Poritol. If the bill had been in his possession, he should have been able to copy the abbreviated message. Indeed, the lies that he had told were all against the notion of placing any confidence in him. The two South Americans were altogether too eager.

Orme decided to go for a walk. He could think better in the open air. He took up his hat and cane, and descended in the elevator.

In the office the clerk stopped him.

“A man called to see you a few minutes ago, Mr. Orme. When I told him that you were engaged with two visitors he went away.”

“Did he leave his name?” asked Orme.

“No, sir. He was a Japanese.”

Orme nodded and went on out to the street. What could a Japanese want of him?