“No, I didn’t get the message till about three o’clock.  I suppose he’ll be around to-morrow.”

“You will have to turn the cabinet over to him, of course?”

“Why, yes, it belongs to him.  At least, it doesn’t belong to Vantine.”

He slipped the message into its envelope and handed it back to me.  I could see that he was perplexed and upset.

“Well, in spite of this,” he said finally, “I am still interested in that cabinet, Lester, and I wish you would keep possession of it as long as you can.  At least, I wouldn’t give it up until he delivered to you the other cabinet which Vantine really bought.”

“Oh, I’ll make him do that,” I agreed quickly.  “That will no doubt take a few days—­longer than that if Vantine’s cabinet is in Paris.”

Godfrey raised a finger to the waiter, asked for the check, and paid it.

“And now let us go down and have a look at this one,” he said, “as we intended doing.  You will think me foolish, Lester, but even that cablegram hasn’t shaken my belief in the existence of that secret drawer.”

“And all the rest?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered slowly, “and all the rest.”  He said nothing more until we stopped before the Vantine house, but I could see, from his puckered brows, how desperately he was trying to untangle this quirk in the mystery.

“The siege seems to have been lifted,” I remarked, as we alighted.

“The siege?”

“Parks telephoned me that your esteemed contemporaries had the place surrounded.  I told him to hold the fort!”

“Poor boys!” he commented, smiling.  “To think that all they know is what Grady is able to tell them!” Then he stopped before the house and made a careful survey of it.

“Which room is the cabinet in?” he asked.

“The ante-room is there at the left where those two shuttered windows are.  The cabinet is in the corner room—­there is one window on this side and two on the other.”

“Wait till I take a look at them,” he said, and, vaulting the low railing, he walked quickly along the front of the house and around the corner.  He was gone only a minute.  “They’re all right,” he said, in a tone of relief.

“Of course they’re all right.  You didn’t suppose—­”

“If that cabinet contains what I thought it did, Lester—­yes,” he added, a little savagely, as he saw my look, “and what I still think it does—­it wouldn’t be safe in the strongest vault of the National City Bank,” and he motioned for me to ring the bell.

I did so, in silence.

Parks answered it almost instantly, and I could tell from the way his face changed how glad he was to see me.

“Well, Parks,” I said, as we stepped inside, “everything is all right, I hope?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered.  “But—­but it gets on the nerves a little, sir.”

I heard a movement behind me, as I gave Parks my coat, and turned to see Rogers sitting on the cot.