“No, Marie,” said Elaine.  “I’ll unpack them my self.  You can put the things away later.  You and Jennings may go.”

Quickly she took the things out of the battered trunk.  Then she started on the other trunk which was like it but not marked.  She threw out a couple of garments, then paused, startled.

There was the lost torpedo—­where Bertholdi had stuck it in her haste!  Elaine picked it up and looked at it in wonder as it recalled all those last days before Kennedy was lost.  For the moment she did not know quite what to make of it.  What should she do?

Finally she decided to lock it up in the bureau drawer and tell me.  Not only did she lock the drawer but, as she left her room, she took the key of the door from the lock inside and locked it outside.

. . . . . . .

Del Mar did not go far from the house, however.  He scarcely reached the edge of the grounds where he was sure he was not observed when he placed his fingers to his lips and whistled.  An instant later two of his men appeared from behind a hedge.

“You must get into her room,” he ordered.  “That torpedo is in her luggage somewhere, after all.”

They bowed and disappeared again into the shrubbery while Del Mar turned and retraced his steps to the house.

In the rear of the house the two emissaries of Del Mar stole out of the shelter of some bushes and stood for a moment looking.  Elaine’s windows were high above them, too high to reach.  There seemed to be no way to get to them and there was no ladder in sight.

“We’ll have to use the Dutch house-man’s method,” decided one.

Together they went around the house toward the laundry.  It was only a few minutes later that they returned.  No one was about.  Quickly one of them took off his coat.  Around his waist he had wound a coil of rope.  Deftly he began to climb a tree whose upper branches fell over the roof.  Cat-like he made his way out along a branch and managed to reach the roof.  He made his way along the ridge pole to a chimney which was directly back of and in line with Elaine’s windows.  Then he uncoiled the rope and made one end fast to the chimney.  Letting the other end fall free down the roof, he carefully lowered himself over the edge.  Thus it was not difficult to get into Elaine’s room by stepping on the window-sill and going through the open window.

The man began a rapid search of the room, turning up and pawing everything that Elaine had unpacked.  Then he began on the little writing-desk, the dresser and the bureau drawers.  A subtle smile flashed over his face as he came to one drawer that was locked.  He pulled a sectional jimmy from his coat and forced it open.

There lay the precious torpedo.

The man clutched at it with a look of exultation.  Without another glance at the room he rushed to the window, seized the rope and pulled himself to the roof, going as he had come.