There, in his path, was his enemy, the new girl.  Quick as a flash, she saw what it was Rusty had, and grabbed at it.

“Get out!” she ordered, looking at her prize in triumph and turning it over and over in her hands.

At that moment she heard Elaine on the stairs.  What should she do?  She must hide it.  She looked about.  There was the tray, packed and lying on the floor near the trunk marked, “E.  Dodge.”  She thrust it hastily into the tray pulling a garment over it.

“Nearly through?” panted Elaine.

“Yes, Miss Dodge.”

“Then please tell the expressman to come up.”

Bertholdi hesitated, chagrined.  Yet there was nothing to do but obey.  She looked at the trunk by the tray to fix it in her mind, then went down-stairs.

As she left the room, Elaine lifted the tray into the trunk and tried to close the lid.  But the tray was too high.  She looked puzzled.  On the floor was another tray almost identical.

“The wrong trunk,” she smiled to herself, lifting the tray out and putting the other one in, while she placed the first tray with the torpedo concealed in the other, unmarked, trunk where it belonged.  Then she closed the first trunk.

A moment later the expressman entered, with Bertholdi.

“You may take that one,” indicated Elaine.

“Miss Dodge, here’s something else to go in,” said Bertholdi in desperation, picking up a dress.

“Never mind.  Put it in the other trunk.”

Bertholdi was baffled, but she managed to control herself.  She must get word to Del Mar about that trunk marked “E.  Dodge.”

. . . . . . .

Late that afternoon, before a cheap restaurant might have been seen our old friend who had posed as Bailey and as the Mexican.  He entered the restaurant and made his way to the first of a row of booths on one side.

“Hello,” he nodded to a girl in the booth.

Bertholdi nodded back and he took his seat.  She had begged an hour or two off on some pretext

Outside the restaurant, a heavily-bearded man had been standing looking intently at nothing in particular when Bertholdi entered.  As Bailey came along, he followed and took the next booth, his hat pulled over his eyes.  In a moment he was listening, his ear close up to the partition.

“Well, what luck?” asked Bailey.  “Did you get a clue?”

“I had the torpedo model in my hands,” she replied, excitedly telling the story.  “It is in a trunk marked ‘E.  Dodge.’”

All this and more the bearded stranger drank in eagerly.

A moment later Bailey and Bertholdi left the booth and went out of the restaurant followed cautiously by the stranger.  On the street the two emissaries of Del Mar stopped a moment to talk.

“All right, I’ll telephone him,” she said as they parted in opposite directions.

The stranger took an instant to make up his mind, then followed the girl.  She continued down the street until she came to a store with telephone booths.  The bearded stranger followed still, into the next booth but did not call a number.  He had his ear to the wall.