“At his old tricks, I suppose,” observed some one.

“No; that was the strangest part of it.  He’s struck a deeper game—­though I’m blessed if I can make it out—­he’s dropped the title altogether, and now calls himself Mister—­I’ve forgotten for the moment the rest of it, but it is an English name.  He’s made a stake somehow, and travels about in decent comfort.  He passes now as an American—­his English is excellent—­and he hints at large American interests.”

“He probably has forged securities to sell,” commented the German.  “I know those fellows.  The business is best done quietly.”

“I dare say,” returned Chauvenet.

“Of course, you greeted him as a long-lost friend,” remarked Claiborne leadingly.

“No; I wanted to make sure of him; and, strangely enough, he assisted me in a very curious way.”

All felt that they were now to hear the denouement of the story, and several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the table.  Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little shrug of his shoulders.

“Well, I must go back a moment to say that the man I knew at Bar Harbor had a real crest—­the ladies to whom he wrote notes treasured them, I dare say, because of the pretty insignium.  He had it engraved on his cigarette case, a bird of some kind tiptoeing on a helmet, and beneath there was a motto, Fide non armis.”

“The devil!” exclaimed the young German.  “Why, that’s very like—­”

“Very like the device of the Austrian Schomburgs.  Well, I remembered the cigarette case, and one night at a concert—­in Berlin, you know—­I chanced to sit with some friends at a table quite near where he sat alone; I had my eye on him, trying to assure myself of his identity, when, in closing his cigarette case, it fell almost at my feet, and I bumped heads with a waiter as I picked it up—­I wanted to make sure—­and handed it to him, the imitation baron.”

“That was your chance to startle him a trifle, I should say,” remarked the German.

“He was the man, beyond doubt.  There was no mistaking the cigarette ease.  What I said was,”—­continued Chauvenet,—­“‘Allow me, Baron!’”

“Well spoken!” exclaimed the Spanish officer.

“Not so well, either,” laughed Chauvenet.  “He had the best of it—­he’s a clever man, I am obliged to admit!  He said—­” and Chauvenet’s mirth stifled him for a moment.

“Yes; what was it?” demanded the German impatiently.

“He said:  ‘Thank you, waiter!’ and put the cigarette case back into his pocket!”

They all laughed.  Then Captain Claiborne’s eyes fell upon the table and rested idly on John Armitage’s cigarette case—­on the smoothly-worn gold of the surface, on the snowy falcon and the silver helmet on which the bird poised.  He started slightly, then tossed his napkin carelessly on the table so that it covered the gold trinket completely.