“So after all the bother of stealing two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of negotiable securities you lost them!” Hood remarked when Deering ended his recital.

Deering frowned and nodded. Not only had he told his story to this utter stranger, but he had found infinite relief in doing so.

“Let us go over the points again,” said Hood calmly. “You set down your suitcase containing two hundred K. & L. Terminal 5’s in the Grand Central Station, turned round to buy a ticket to Boston, and when you picked up the bag it was the wrong one! Such instances are not rare; the strong family resemblance between suitcases has caused much trouble in this world. Only the other day a literary friend told me the magazine editors have placed a ban on mixed suitcases as a fictional device; but of course that doesn’t help us any in this affair. I’ve known a few professional suitcase lifters. One of the smoothest is Sammy Tibbots, but he’s doing time in Joliet, so we may as well eliminate Sammy.”

“No, no!” Deering exclaimed impatiently. “It was a girl who did the trick! She was at the local ticket window, just behind me. You see, I was nervous and after I bought my ticket it dropped to the floor, and while I was picking it up that girl grabbed my suitcase and beat it for the gate.”

“Enter the girl,” Hood muttered. “’Twas ever thus! Of course, you telegraphed ahead and stopped her—that was the obvious course.”

“There you go! If I’d done that, there wouldn’t have been any publicity; oh, no!” Deering replied contemptuously. “People don’t carry big bunches of bonds around in suitcases; they send ’em by registered express. Of course, if the girl was honest she’d report the matter to the railroad officials and they’d notify the police, and they’d be looking for the thief! And that’s just what I don’t want.”

“Of course not,” Hood assented readily. “That was Wednesday and this is Friday, and you haven’t seen any ads in the papers about a suitcase full of bonds? Well, I’d hardly have missed such a thing myself. What did the girl look like?”

“Small, dressed in blue and wearing a white veil. She made a lively sprint for the gate, and climbed into the last car just as the train started. The conductor yelled to her not to try it, but the porter jumped out and pushed her up the steps.”

At Hood’s suggestion Deering brought the suitcase that had been exchanged for his own, and disclosed its contents—a filmy night-dress, a silk shirt-waist, a case of ivory toilet articles bearing a complicated monogram, a bottle of violet-water, half empty, a pair of silk stockings, a novel, a pair of patent-leather pumps, all tumbled together.

“The young person left in haste, that’s clear enough,” remarked Hood, balancing one of the pumps in his hand. “‘Bonet, Paris,’” he read, squinting at the lining. “Most deplorable that we have both slippers; one would have been a clew, and we could have spent the rest of our lives measuring footprints. Very nice slippers, though; fastidious young person, I’ll wager. The monogram on these trinkets is of no assistance—it might be R. G. T., or T. G. R., or G. R. T. Monograms are a nuisance, a delusion, a snare!”

Deering flung the faintly scented violet-tinted toilet-case into the bag resentfully.

“The silly little fool; why didn’t she mind what she was doing!” he exclaimed angrily, “and not steal other people’s things!”

“Pardon me,” Hood remonstrated, “but from your story the less you speak of stealing the better. But it isn’t clear yet why you sneaked the bonds. Your father has a reputation for generosity; you’re an only son and slated to succeed him in the banking-house. Just what was your idea in starting for Boston with the loot?”

“It was to help Ned Ranscomb, an old pal of mine,” Deering blurted—“one of the best fellows on earth, who has pulled me out of a lot of holes. He’d taken options on Mizpah Copper for more than he could pay for and fell on my neck to help him out. And the rotten part of it is that I can’t find him anywhere! I’ve telephoned and telegraphed all over creation, but he’s fallen off the earth! I tell you everything from the start has gone wrong. I guess I didn’t tell you that I already had a couple of hundred thousand in Mizpah—all I could put up personally, and now I’ve lost the two hundred thousand I stole, and Ned’s got cold feet and drowned himself, and here I’m talking about it to a man who may be a crook for all I know!”

“This disappearance of Ranscomb has a suspicious look,” remarked Hood, ignoring the fling. “Either money or a woman, of course.”

“Ranscomb,” Deering retorted savagely, “is all business and never fools with women. And you can bet that with this big copper deal on he wouldn’t waste time on any girl that ever was born.”

“Human beings are as we find them,” observed Hood judicially, “but you’re entirely too tragic about this whole business. If it isn’t comedy, it’s nothing. I’ll wager the girl who skipped with your stolen boodle has a sense of humor. The key-note to her character is in this novel she grabbed as she hastily packed her bag—‘The Madness of May.’ That’s one of the drollest books ever written. A story like that is a boon to mankind; it kept me chuckling all night. Haven’t read it? Well, the heroine excused herself from a dinner-table that was boring her to death, ran to her room and packed a suitcase, and that was the last her friends saw of her for some time. Along about this season it’s in the blood of healthy human beings to pine for clean air and the open road. It’s the wanderlust that’s in all of us, old and young alike. It’s possible that the young lady who ran off with your bonds felt the spring madness and determined to hit the trail as the girl did in that yarn. Finding herself possessed of a lot of bonds belonging to a stranger, I dare say she is badly frightened. Put yourself in that girl’s place, Deering—imagine her feelings, landing somewhere after a hurried journey, opening her suitcase to chalk her nose, and finding herself a thief!”

“Rot!” sniffed Deering angrily.

One moment he distrusted Hood; the next his heart warmed to him. At the table the light-hearted adventurer had kept him entertained and amused with his running comment on books, public characters, the world’s gold supply, and scrapes he had been in, without dropping any clew to his identity. He seemed to be a veritable encyclopÆdia of places; apparently there was not a town in the United States that he hadn’t visited, and he spoke of exclusive clubs and thieves’ dens in the same breath. But Deering’s hopes of gaining practical aid in the search for the lost bonds was rapidly waning.

“There’s no use being silly about this; I’m going to telephone to a detective agency and tell them to send out a good man, right away—to-night——”

“As you please,” Hood assented, “but if you do, you’ll regret it to your last hour. I know the whole breed, and you may count on their making a mess of it. And consider for a moment that what you propose means putting a hired bloodhound on the trail of a girl who probably never harmed a kitten in her life. It would be rotten caddishness to send a policeman after her. It isn’t done, Deering; it isn’t done! Of course, there’s not much chance that the sleuths would ever come within a hundred miles of her, but what if they found her! You are a gentleman, Deering, and that’s not the game for you to play.”

“Then tell me a better one! In ten days at the farthest father will be back and what am I going to say to him—how am I going to explain breaking into his safety box and stealing those bonds?”

“You can’t explain it, of course, and it’s rather up to you, son, to put ’em back. Every hour you spend talking about it is wasted time. That girl’s had your suitcase two days, and it’s your duty to find her. Something must have happened or she’d have turned it back to the railroad company. Perhaps she’s been arrested as a thief and thrown into jail! Again, her few effects point to a degree of prosperity—she’s not a girl who would steal for profit; I’ll swear to that. We must find that girl! We’ll toss a slipper and start off the way the toe points.”

Indifferent to Deering’s snort of disgust, Hood was already whirling the slipper in the air.

“Slightly northeast! There you are, Deering—the clear pointing of Fate! The girl wasn’t going far or she wouldn’t have been in the local ticket line, and even a lady in haste packs more stuff for a long journey. We’ll run up to the Barton Arms—an excellent inn, and establish headquarters. The girl who danced off with your two hundred thousand is probably around there somewhere, bringing up her tennis for the first tournaments of the season. Let’s be moving; a breath of air will do you good.”

“That’s all you can do about it, is it?” demanded Deering. “Let me tell my whole story—put myself in your power, and now the best you can do is to flip a slipper to see which way to start!”

“Just as good a way as any,” remarked Hood amiably.

He pressed the button, ordered his car, and then led the way back to Deering’s room.

“Throw some things into a bag. You’ll soon forget your sordid money affairs and begin to live, and you’d better be prepared for anything that turns up. I’ll fold the coats; some old fishing-togs for rough work and jails, and even your dress suit may come in handy.”

He fell to work, folding the suits neatly, while Deering moved about like a man in a trance, assembling linen and toilet articles.

“Something tells me we’re going to have a pretty good time,” continued Hood musingly. “I’ll show you untold kingdoms, things that never were on sea or land. We shall meet people worn with the world-old struggle for things they don’t need, and who are out in the tender May air looking for happiness—the only business, my dear boy, that’s really worth while. And you’ll be surprised, son, to find how many such people there are.”

“Ah, you’re ready, Cassowary!” remarked Hood as they stepped out of the side door where a big touring-car was drawn up in the driveway. “Just a moment till I get my stick.”

Briggs had placed their bags in the car, and Deering had a moment in which to observe the chauffeur, who stood erect and touched his cap. Hood’s protÉgÉ proved to be a tall, dark, well-knit young fellow dressed in a well-fitting chauffeur’s costume.

“It’s a good night for a run,” Deering suggested, eying the man in the light from the door.

“Fine, sir.”

“I hope the people in the house took good care of you.”

“Very good, sir.”

There was nothing in Cassowary’s voice or manner to indicate that he was the possessor of the fortune to which Hood had referred so lightly. Deering’s hastily formed impressions of Hood’s chauffeur were wholly agreeable and satisfying.

Hood, lingering in the hall, could be heard warning Briggs against the further accumulation of fat. He recommended a new system of reducing, and gave the flushed and stuttering butler the name of a New York specialist in dietetics whom he advised him to consult without delay.

The chauffeur’s lips twitched and, catching Deering’s eye, he winked. Deering tapped his forehead. Cassowary shook his head.

“Don’t you believe it!” he ejaculated with spirit.

At this moment Hood appeared on the steps, banging his recovered stick noisily as he descended.

“The Barton Arms, Cassowary,” he ordered, and they set off at a lively clip.

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