“I don’t mean you, of course.  This whole outfit here—­what are they doing?  Think they’re put on in a walking part, eh?  Don’t they know enough to go in out of the rain?” Getting no reply to his fuming, he came down from his high horse, curiosity impelling.  “What’d he kidnap you for—­ransom?”

“No.  It seems that he mistook me for Miss Reynier—­the lady out there on the lawn talking with Mr. Van Camp.”

Mr. Straker bent his intent gaze out of the window.

“I don’t see any resemblance at all.”  His crusty manner implied that Agatha, or somebody, was to blame for all the coil of trouble, and should be made to pay for it.

“Even I was puzzled,” smiled Agatha.  “I thought she was some one I knew.”

“Nonsense!” growled Mr. Straker.  “Anybody with two eyes could see the difference.  She’s older, and heavier.  What did the scoundrel want with her?”

“I don’t know.  She’s a princess or something.”

Mr. Straker jumped.  “She is!” he cried.  “Lord, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m trying to.”

“Advertising!” he shouted joyfully.  “Jimminy Christmas!  We’ll make it up—­all this time lost.  Princess who?  Where from?  I guess you do look like her, after all.  I see it all now—­head-lines!  ’Strange confusion of identity!  Which is the princess?’ It’ll draw crowds—­thousands.”

Agatha escaped, leaving Mr. Straker to collect from others the details of his advertising story, which he did with surprising speed and accuracy.  By the next morning he had pumped Sallie, Doctor Thayer and Aleck Van Camp, and had extracted the promise of an interview from Miss Reynier herself.

The only really unsatisfactory subject of investigation was Mr. Hand, whom Straker watched for a day or two with growing suspicion.  Straker had sputtered, good-naturedly enough, over the “accident” to his racing-car, and had taken it for granted, in rather a high-handed manner, that Mr. Hand was to make repairs.  His manner toward the chauffeur was not pleasant, being a combination of the patron and the bully.  It was exactly the sort of manner to precipitate civil war, though diplomacy might serve to cover the breach for a time.

But the racing-car, ignominiously towed home by Miss Reynier’s white machine, stood undisturbed in one of the open carriage sheds by the church.  Eluded by Hand for the space of twenty-four hours, and finding that the injury to the car was far beyond his own mechanical skill to repair, Mr. Straker sent peremptory word to Charlesport and to the Hillside for the services of a mechanician, without satisfaction.  Little Simon thought the matter was beyond him, but informed Mr. Straker that perhaps the engineer at the quarry—­a native who had “been to Boston” and qualified as chauffeur—­would come and look at it.

“Then for Heaven’s sake, Colonel, get him to come and be quick about it,” adjured Mr. Straker.  “And tell him for me that there’s a long-yellow for him if he’ll make the thing right.”