So I gave him up finally and went home to pack.  He came later in the evening with his machine, the Cannonball, to take me to the station, and he brought the forged notes in the Bronson case.

“Guard them with your life,” he warned me.  “They are more precious than honor.  Sew them in your chest protector, or wherever people keep valuables.  I never keep any.  I’ll not be happy until I see Gentleman Andy doing the lockstep.”

He sat down on my clean collars, found my cigarettes and struck a match on the mahogany bed post with one movement.

“Where’s the Pirate?” he demanded.  The Pirate is my housekeeper, Mrs. Klopton, a very worthy woman, so labeled—­and libeled—­because of a ferocious pair of eyes and what McKnight called a bucaneering nose.  I quietly closed the door into the hall.

“Keep your voice down, Richey,” I said.  “She is looking for the evening paper to see if it is going to rain.  She has my raincoat and an umbrella waiting in the hall.”

The collars being damaged beyond repair, he left them and went to the window.  He stood there for some time, staring at the blackness that represented the wall of the house next door.

“It’s raining now,” he said over his shoulder, and closed the window and the shutters.  Something in his voice made me glance up, but he was watching me, his hands idly in his pockets.

“Who lives next door?” he inquired in a perfunctory tone, after a pause.  I was packing my razor.

“House is empty,” I returned absently.  “If the landlord would put it in some sort of shape—–­”

“Did you put those notes in your pocket?” he broke in.

“Yes.”  I was impatient.  “Along with my certificates of registration, baptism and vaccination.  Whoever wants them will have to steal my coat to get them.”

“Well, I would move them, if I were you.  Somebody in the next house was confoundedly anxious to see where you put them.  Somebody right at that window opposite.”

I scoffed at the idea, but nevertheless I moved the papers, putting them in my traveling-bag, well down at the bottom.  McKnight watched me uneasily.

“I have a hunch that you are going to have trouble,” he said, as I locked the alligator bag.  “Darned if I like starting anything important on Friday.”

“You have a congenital dislike to start anything on any old day,” I retorted, still sore from my lost Saturday.  “And if you knew the owner of that house as I do you would know that if there was any one at that window he is paying rent for the privilege.”

Mrs. Klopton rapped at the door and spoke discreetly from the hall.

“Did Mr. McKnight bring the evening paper?” she inquired.

“Sorry, but I didn’t, Mrs. Klopton,” McKnight called.  “The Cubs won, three to nothing.”  He listened, grinning, as she moved away with little irritated rustles of her black silk gown.