She took the slip of white pasteboard handed her.  On it was written in pencil “Room 708.”  The building was a skyscraper down-town.

“What is it?” she asked half indignantly, “a new scheme to sell bonds?”

“No, no, Miss Strong,” he cried, “it is nothing like that.  It is a great opportunity to do an important service for America.”

“How did you know my name?”

“I heard you give it to the clerk just now.”

“And why,” she inquired with what she intended to be withering sarcasm, “have I been selected so suddenly for this important work?”

“I heard the address you gave, that’s why,” he answered.  “That’s what makes it so important that you should go to that number at once.  Ask for Mr. Fleck.”

“I can’t go,” she temporized.  “I am on my way now to meet my mother at the Ritz.”

“Go to-morrow, then,” he insisted.  “I’ll see Mr. Fleck meanwhile and tell him about you.”

Puzzled at the man’s unusual and wholly preposterous request, yet in spite of herself impressed by his evident sincerity, Jane turned the card nervously in her hand and discovered some small characters on the back; “K-15” they read.

“What do those figures mean?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you that.  Mr. Fleck will explain everything.  Promise me you will go to see him.”

“Who are you?”

“I can’t tell you that, yet.”

“Who, then, is Mr. Fleck?”

“He will explain that to you.”

“What has my address to do with it?  I can’t understand yet why you make this preposterous request of me.”

“I tell you I can’t explain it to you, not yet,” the man replied, “but it’s because you live where you do you must go to see Mr. Fleck.  It’s about a matter of the highest importance to your government.  It is more important than life and death.”

His last words startled her.  They brought to her mind afresh the mysterious occurrence she had witnessed the night before and the equally mysterious death near her home.  Had this man’s odd request any connection, she wondered, with what had happened there?  The lure of the unknown, the opportunity for adventure, called to her, though prudence bade her be cautious.

“I’ll ask my mother,” she temporized.

“Don’t,” cried the man.  “You must keep your visit to Mr. Fleck a secret from everybody.  You mustn’t breathe a word about it even to your father and mother.  Take my word for it, Miss Strong, that what I am asking you to do is right.  I’ve two daughters of my own.  The thing I’m urging you to do I’d be proud and honored to have either of them do if they could.  There is no one else in the world but you that can do this particular thing.  A word to a single living soul and you’ll end your usefulness.  You must not even tell any one you have talked with me.  See Mr. Fleck.  He’ll explain everything to you.  Promise me you’ll see him.”

“I promise,” Jane found herself saying, even against her better judgment, won over by the man’s insistence.