Shirley puffed and grunted impatiently until he heard the door close behind him.  Then straightening up, he turned upon the startled butler.

“Well, my man.  Go out and tell the chauffeur to leave for the country at once, as Mr. Grimsby already ordered him to do.”

“My Gawd, sir!” exclaimed the servant, paling perceptibly.  “What’s come over you, sir?—­Oh, I beg pardon, sir, you’re the other gentleman.  You certainly fooled me, sir—­You’re bloody brave, sir, to do all this for the master.  Are we in any danger?”

“Not a bit—­whatever happens will be outside the house.  Just keep up the secret, as you value your master’s life.  Go, and tell the man.  I must kill time here in the library, reading until four o’clock.”

Shirley threw aside the greatcoat, and walked to the window of the small reception room which faced the street, to draw aside the curtains and watch the chauffeur, as he entered the machine to speed away.  A black automobile slowly passed the house, bearing two men on the driver’s seat.  From under the visors of their black caps they scrutinized the building, to hastily look away as they observed the face at the window.

Shirley made a note of the number of the machine.  He could have sworn that this was the same car which had passed him that morning at dawn when the grip was snatched from his hand.

He returned to the library, where he lost himself in the rare old volumes of Grimsby’s life collection:  the criminologist was a booklover and the hours drifted by as in a happy playtime, until the butler came to tell him the time.

“Great Scott!  I must hurry.  Call a taxi, for me.  I will go to Holloway’s office to learn where Miss Marigold has been ensconced.”

He sat in the machine before the office building, as he sent the chauffeur up to Dick’s office, to inquire for a message to “Mr. Grimsby.”  A note was brought down, informing him that the girl awaited him in the Hotel California, a few blocks above.  The machine started off once more, and Shirley laughed at the droll situation in which he found himself.

“I wonder who Helene Marigold can be?  I wonder what Holloway meant precisely when he predicted that I would meet my match.  I am not seeking one kind—­and blue eyes, surrounded by red-gold hair and peaches and cream will not shake my determination.”

But the best laid determinations of bachelor hearts gang aft agley!

Down at the Hotel California, famous for its rare collection of attractive feminine guests and the manifold breach-of-promise suits which had emanated from the palm bedecked entrance, Helene Marigold was indulging herself in a delighted, albeit highly amused, inspection of sundry large boxes which had been arriving from shops in the neighborhood.

“As nearly as I can imagine this must look like the bower of a Broadway Phryne.  All that is missing is a family portrait in crayon of the father who was a coal miner, the presence of a buxom financial genius for the stage mother, and a Chinese chow-dog on a cerise velvet cushion.  But who ever attains perfection here below?”