Kennedy was telephoning frantically through the regular hotel service to find out how the trains ran for Washington.  The only one that would get there before nine was the three-thirty; the next, leaving an hour later, did not arrive until nearly eleven.  He had evidently had some idea of causing some delay that would result in our friend down the hall missing the limited, but abandoned it.  Any such scheme would simply result in a message to the gang in Washington putting them on their guard and defeating his purpose.

“At all costs we must beat this fellow to it,” exclaimed Craig, waiting to hear no more over his improvised dictograph.  “Come, Walter, we must catch the limited for Washington immediately.  McBride, I leave you and the regular house man to shadow this woman.  Don’t let her get out of your sight for a moment.”

As we rode across the city to the new railroad terminus Craig hastily informed me of what he had overheard.  We took up our post so that we could see the outgoing travellers, and a few minutes later Craig spotted our man from McBride’s description, and succeeded in securing chairs in the same car in which he was to ride.

Taken altogether it was an uneventful journey.  For five mortal hours we sat in the Pullman or toyed with food in the dining-car, never letting the man escape our sight, yet never letting him know that we were watching him.  Nevertheless I could not help asking myself what good it did.  Why did not Kennedy hire a special if the affair was so important as it appeared?  How were we to get ahead of him in Washington better than in New York?  I knew that some plan lurked behind the calm and inscrutable face of Kennedy as I tried to read and could not.

The train had come to a stop in the Union Station.  Our man was walking rapidly up the platform in the direction of the cab stand.  Suddenly Kennedy darted ahead and for a moment we were walking abreast of him.

“I beg your pardon,” began Craig as we came to a turn in the shadow of the arc lights, “but have you a match?”

The man halted and fumbled for his match-box.  Instantly Kennedy’s pocket handkerchief was at his nose.

“Some of the medicine of your own gang of endormeurs,” ground out Kennedy, crushing several of the little glass globes under his handkerchief to make doubly sure of their effect.

The man reeled and would have fallen if we had not caught him between us.  Up the platform we led him in a daze.

“Here,” shouted Craig to a cabman, “my friend is ill.  Drive us around a bit.  It will sober him up.  Come on, Walter, jump in, the air will do us all good.”

Those who were in Washington during that summer will remember the suppressed activity in the State, War, and Navy Departments on a certain very humid night.  Nothing leaked out at the time as to the cause, but it was understood later that a crisis was narrowly averted at a very inopportune season, for the heads of the departments were all away, the President was at his summer home in the North, and even some of the under-secretaries were out of town.  Hasty messages had been sizzling over the wires in cipher and code for hours.