“Of course, the sleeping car doors can only be opened from the inside when it is occupied, save with a key,” Nan hastened to say; “so you see she was supposed to enter through the ventilator and afterward open the door to the men.”

“I see,” Mr. Sherwood observed, yet still rather puzzled by his daughter’s vehemence.

Jennie Albert, however, when he was introduced to her by Nan, gave a much clearer account of the matter.  To take up the story where Nan had broken off, Jennie, when she wriggled through the window into the car, had seen a big negro man stooping over a man in a lower berth and removing something from under his pillow.

The man in the berth was lying on his back and snoring vociferously.  There seemed to be no other passenger remaining in the car.

Jennie did not see what the colored man took from the sleeping passenger, but she was sure he was robbing him.  The negro, however, saw Jennie, and threatened to harm her if she ever spoke of the matter.

The director of the picture and other men were outside.  The girl was alarmed and more than half sick then.  She had the remainder of the director’s instructions to carry out.

Therefore, she hurried to open the sleeping car door as her instructions called for, and the negro thief escaped without Jennie’s saying a word to anybody about him.

Mr. Sherwood, as deeply interested, but calmer than Nan, asked questions to make sure of the identity of the sleeping passenger.  It was Mr. Ravell Bulson, without a doubt.

“And about the negro?” he asked the girl.  “Describe him.”

But all Jennie could say was that he was a big, burly fellow with a long, long nose.

“An awfully long nose for a colored person,” said Jennie.  “He frightened me so, I don’t remember much else about him—­and I’m no scare-cat, either.  You ask any of the directors I have worked for during the past two years.  If I only had a pretty face like your Nan, here, Mr. Sherwood, they’d be giving me the lead in feature films—­believe me!”

The mystery of how the negro got into the locked car was explained when Mr. Sherwood chanced to remember that the porter of the coach in which he had ridden from Chicago that night answered the description Jennie Albert gave of the person who had robbed Mr. Bulson.

“I remember that nose!” declared Mr. Sherwood, with satisfaction.  “Now we’ll clear this mystery up.  You have given me a key, Miss Jennie, to what was a very hard lock to open.”

This proved to be true.  Mr. Sherwood went to his conference with the automobile people with a lighter heart.  On their advice, he told the story to the police and the description of the negro porter was recognized as that of a man who already had a police record—­one “Nosey” Thompson.

This negro had obtained a position with the sleeping car company under a false name and with fraudulent recommendations.