As we approached, I saw that there was a taxicab standing in front of the gate.  The hood was lifted and the driver was apparently tinkering with his engine.

“Let’s not stop,” said Elaine, who had by this time a peculiar aversion to the man.

As we passed the driver, apparently not seeing us, stepped out and, before we could turn out, we had knocked him down.  We stopped and ran back.

There he lay on the road, seemingly unconscious.  We lifted him up and I looked toward Del Mar’s house.

“Help!” I shouted at the top of my voice.

The valet came to the door.

Hearing me, the valet ran out down the walk.  “All right,” he cried.  “I’ll be there in a minute.”

With his help I picked up the taxicab chauffeur and we carried him into the house.

Del Mar was talking with a person who looked like a widow, when they heard our approach up the walk carrying the injured man.

So engrossed had they been in discerning what the stolen document contained that, as we finally entered, the widow had only time to drop her veil and conceal her identity as the renegade Smith.  Del Mar still held the plan in his hand.

The valet and I entered with Elaine and we placed the chauffeur on a couch near Del Mar’s desk.  I remember that there was this strange woman all in black, heavily veiled, in the room at the time.

“I think we ought to telephone for a doctor,” said Elaine placing her hand-bag on the desk and excitedly telling Del Mar how we had accidentally knocked the man down.

“Call up my doctor, Henry,” said Del Mar, hastily thrusting the plan into a book lying on the desk.

We gathered about the man, trying to revive him.

“Have you a little stimulant?” I asked, turning from him.

Del Mar moved toward a cellarette built into the wall.  We were all watching him, our backs to the chauffeur, when suddenly he must have regained consciousness very much.  Like a flash his hand shot out.  He seized the plan from between the leaves of the book.  He had not time to get away with it himself.  Perhaps he might be searched.  He opened Elaine’s bag, and thrust it in.

The valet by this time had finished telephoning and spoke to Del Mar.

“The doctor will be here shortly, Miss Dodge,” said Del Mar.  “You need not wait, if you don’t care to.  I’ll take care of him.”

“Oh, thank you—­ever so much,” she murmured.  “Of course it wasn’t our fault, but I feel sorry for the poor fellow.  Tell the doctor to send me the bill.”

She and Del Mar shook hands.  I thought he held her hand perhaps a little longer and a little tighter than usual.  At any rate Elaine seemed to think so.

“Why, what a curious ring, Mr. Del Mar,” she said, finally releasing her own hand from his grasp.

Then she looked quickly at the woman, half joking, as if the ring had something to do with the strange woman.  She looked back at the ring.  Del Mar smiled, shook his head and laughed easily.