“They are muddying the water all around,” Ranleigh commented.  “So I imagine they are about to make a get-away with the goods.”

“Try to, Ranleigh, try to,” Harleston amended.  “They won’t make a get-away so long as we have Madame Spencer in our midst.  Keep your eye on the dark-haired loveliness; with her in the landscape the goods are still here.  Now for Carpenter.”

“Permit me to suggest a taxi!” Ranleigh observed.  “It’s just as well that you shouldn’t wander about alone on the well-lighted streets of the National Capital—­”

“You think I might be suspended by the Interstate Commerce Commission, or enjoined by the Federal Trades Commission, or be violating the Clayton Anti-Trust Act?”

“You might be any and all of them, God knows—­as well as contrary to some paternal act of a non-thinking, theoretical, and subservient Congress.  However, I’m pinning my faith to you and hoping for the best; Jimmy-the-Snake is cruising whether and whence and wherefore.”

“Also besides and among!” Harleston laughed.

“Seriously, I mean it about The Snake,” Ranleigh repeated; “and you’d better have this with you also,” taking a small automatic from a drawer of his desk and handing it across.  “You may have need of it; if you do, it will be very convenient.”

Harleston, descending from the taxi, found Carpenter waiting for him on the front piazza.

“Your friend Marston is a very pleasant chap,” he remarked; “also he has a most astonishing nerve.  He actually tried to bribe me for a copy of the Clephane letter.”

“How did you meet it?” Harleston asked.

“I was at a loss how to meet it—­whether to be indignant and order him out, or to be acquiescently non-committal.  I chose the latter course; and after a few preliminary feelers he came out with his offer:  five thousand dollars for liberty to make a copy of the original letter.  I thought a moment, then came back at him with the counter proposition:  if he would secure the key-word from the French Embassy, I would obtain the letter; then together we would make the translation.”

“Delightful!” Harleston applauded.  “What did he say to that?”

“What could he do but accept?  It was fair, and he had premised his offer by a solemn assurance that the United States was not involved!”

“Delightful!” said Harleston again.  “I reckon you’ve seen the last of Marston.”

“He said he would have the key-word by tomorrow night or sooner,” Carpenter remarked.

“I suppose you parted like fellow conspirators,” Harleston laughed.

“Yes; suspicious of each other and ready for anything.  We were strictly professional.  Diplomatic manners and distrustful hearts.”

“Do you think that Marston will try for the key-word?” Harleston asked.

“I do!  He probably has it, or rather Spencer has it.  Also I think he will submit it for a test with the letter.  He knows his attempt to bribe me failed, and that the only way he can have access to the letter is to come with the key-word.  And you need not fear that I shall let him copy the letter until after I’ve tested the key-word and found it correct.”