During this meal Mr. Fogerty also took occasion to refresh himself, eating modestly at a retired table in a corner.  Mershone’s sharp eyes noted him.  He remembered seeing this youth at breakfast, and thoughtfully reflected that the boy’s appearance was not such as might be expected from the guest of a fashionable and high-priced hotel.  Silently he marked this individual as the possible detective.  He had two or three others in his mind, by this time; the boy was merely added to the list of possibilities.

Mershone was a capital actor.  After luncheon he sauntered about the hotel, stared from the window for a time, looked at his watch once or twice with an undecided air, and finally stepped to the porter and asked him to call a cab.  He started for Central Park; then changed his mind and ordered the man to drive him to the Von Taer residence, where on arrival Diana at once ordered him shown into her private parlor.

The young man found his cousin stalking up and down in an extremely nervous manner.  She wrung her delicate fingers with a swift, spasmodic motion.  Her eyes, nearly closed, shot red rays through their slits.

“What’s wrong, Di?” demanded Mershone, considerably surprised by this intense display of emotion on the part of his usually self-suppressed and collected cousin.

“Wrong!” she echoed; “everything is wrong.  You’ve ruined yourself, Charlie; and you’re going to draw me into this dreadful crime, also, in spite of all I can do!”

“Bah! don’t be a fool,” he observed, calmly taking a chair.

“Am I the fool?” she exclaimed, turning upon him fiercely.  “Did I calmly perpetrate a deed that was sure to result in disgrace and defeat?”

“What on earth has happened to upset you?” he asked, wonderingly.  “It strikes me everything is progressing beautifully.”

“Does it, indeed?” was her sarcastic rejoinder.  “Then your information is better than mine.  They called me up at three o’clock this morning to enquire after Louise Merrick—­as if I should know her whereabouts.  Why did they come to me for such information?  Why?” she stamped her foot for emphasis.

“I suppose,” said Charlie Mershone, “they called up everyone who knows the girl.  It would be natural in case of her disappearance.”

“Come here!” cried Diana, seizing his arm and dragging him to a window.  “Be careful; try to look out without showing yourself.  Do you see that man on the corner?”

“Well?”

“He has been patrolling this house since day-break.  He’s a detective!”

Charlie whistled.

“What makes you think so, Di?  Why on earth should they suspect you?”

“Why?  Because my disreputable cousin planned the abduction, without consulting me, and—­”

“Oh, come, Di; that’s a little too—­”

“Because the girl has been carried to the Von Taer house—­my house—­in East Orange; because my own servant is at this moment her jailor, and—­”