Zita took the key eagerly, thanked Paul profusely, and started for the door.

She had barely passed the threshold before Dora, who had heard all, was at the telephone in her own room and was angrily calling up Balcom at his apartment.

Balcom, assisted by his Madagascan servant, was at the moment packing a trunk, perhaps preparatory to a hasty flight, should that become necessary.  The moment the telephone rang he picked up the receiver and nearly choked with anger as he heard Dora’s whispered voice over the wire.

“Paul has given Zita the key to your apartment,” Dora hastened, “and she is coming over to steal the record of her birth.”

“She is—­eh?  Well, I’ll take care of that,” growled Balcom, as he rang off.

Balcom went to a drawer in the table and from it took a large book.  Rapidly he turned over the pages until he found what he wanted.  Then he made an erasure and an entry and replaced the book in the drawer.  Next he called the servant.

“When she comes, you make her a prisoner,” he directed.  “Understand?”

The Madagascan nodded and raised one of Balcom’s hands to his own forehead as a sign of his fidelity.

Balcom went out and the servant stepped into the empty trunk to await the arrival of Zita.

But it was a very different person with whom the Madagascan had to contend in the end.

On leaving Dora’s apartment, Zita telephoned Brent Rock, and Locke answered immediately.  Locke readily agreed to make the search of Balcom’s apartment in Zita’s stead.

When the Madagascan heard a key in the door he stealthily peeped from his hiding-place and saw, instead of Zita, Locke.

Locke’s back was turned, and the Madagascan, undaunted, sprang from the trunk and leaped, catlike, on Locke’s back.  But he had not reckoned on his antagonist.  Locke, always on guard, was not taken quite by surprise.  He caught the savage in a jiu-jitsu hold, throwing him over his head to land in a far corner of the room.

In spite of the fall, the Madagascan bounded to his feet, like a rubber ball, but a few stiff jabs from Locke soon took all the fight out of him and he lay still, completely knocked out.

Locke made a hurried but systematic search of the room, and finally found the book that he sought, taking it and returning to Eva at Brent Rock.

After telephoning, Zita went directly to Doctor Q’s laboratory, to which she was admitted after he had seen her through his periscope annunciator.

The doctor was fumbling with a test-tube, from which some heavy fumes were issuing.  He motioned her to a chair, near a table upon which were many papers which looked to Zita as though they might be of importance.  Always quick to act, Zita raised her hand as if to arrange her hair, and as she did so she purposely knocked the test-tube out of the doctor’s hand.  The acid spattered on some of the papers, quickly setting them afire.