There, lurching along at full speed was a car.  Two men were actually fighting on the front of it regardless of speed and safety.  As it neared us, I saw it was the taxicab that had been standing before Del Mar’s.  I looked closer at it.  To my utter amazement, who should be driving it but the very chauffeur whom we had left at Del Mar’s only a few minutes before, apparently unconscious.  He could not have been hurt very badly, for he was not only able to drive but was fighting off a man clinging on the running-board.

On rushed the car, directly at us.  Just as it passed us, the chauffeur seemed to summon all his strength.  He struck a powerful blow at the man, recoiled and straightened out his car just in time.  The man fell, literally at our feet.

It was Del Mar himself!

On sped the taxicab.  Bruised though he must have been by the fall, Del Mar nevertheless raised himself by the elbow and fired every chamber of his revolver as fast as he could pump the bullets.

I must say that I admired the man’s pluck.  Elaine and I hurried over to him.  I still had in my hand the queer paper which she had found so strangely in her hand-bag.

“Why, what’s all this about?” I asked eagerly.

Before I could raise him up, Del Mar had regained his feet.

“Just a plain crook, who attacked me,” he muttered, brushing off his clothes to cover up the quick recognition of what it was that I was holding in my hand, for he had seen the plan immediately.

“Can’t we drive you back?” asked Elaine, quite forgetting our fears of Del Mar in the ugly predicament in which he just had been.  “We’ve had trouble but I guess we can get you back.”

“Thank you,” he said, forcing a smile.  “I think anything would be an improvement on my ride here and I’m sure you can do more than you claim.”

He climbed up and sat on the floor of the roadster, his feet outside, and we drove off.  At last we pulled up at Dodge Hall again.

“Won’t you come in?” asked Elaine as we got out.

“Thank you, I believe I will for a few minutes,” consented Del Mar, concealing his real eagerness to follow me.  “I’m all shaken up.”

As we entered the living-room, I was thinking about the map.  I opened a table drawer, hastily took the plan from my pocket and locked it in the drawer.  Elaine, meanwhile, was standing with Del Mar who was talking, but in reality watching me closely.

A smile of satisfaction seemed to flit over his face as he saw what I had done and now knew where the paper was.

I turned to him.  “How are you now?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m much better—­all right,” he answered.  Then he looked at his watch.  “I’ve a very important appointment.  If you’ll excuse me, I’ll walk over to my place.  Thank you again, Miss Dodge, ever so kindly.”

He bowed low and was gone.

. . . . . . .