“Do you know why the servant allowed us to leave the apartment?” whispered Mary with a glance about fearfully, as if the walls had ears.

“No—­why?” inquired Elaine anxiously.

“He’s a tong man who has been chosen to do away with the Prince.  He followed me, and says you have done his work for him.  If you will give him ten thousand dollars for expenses, he will attend to hiding the body.”

Here at least was a way out.

“But do you think that is all right?  Can he do it?” asked Elaine eagerly.

“Do it?  Why those tong men can do anything for money.  Only one must be careful not to offend them.”

Mary was very convincing.

“Yes, I suppose you are right,” agreed Elaine, finally.  “I had better do as you say.  It is the safest way out of the trouble.  Yes, I’ll do it.  I’ll stop at the bank now and get the money.”

They rose and Mary preceded her, eager to get away from the house.  At the door, however, Elaine asked her to wait while she ran back on some pretext.  In the library she took off the receiver of the telephone and quickly called a number.

Our telephone rang in the middle of our conversation on blood crystals and Kennedy himself answered it.

It was Elaine asking Craig’s advice.

“They have offered to hush the thing up for ten thousand dollars,” she said, in a muffled voice.

She seemed bent on doing it and no amount of argument from him could stop her.  She simply refused to accept the evidence of the blood crystals as better than what her own eyes told her she had seen and done.

“Then wait for half an hour,” he answered, without arguing further.  “You can do that without exciting suspicion.  Go with her to her hotel and hand her over the money.”

“All right—­I’ll do it,” she agreed.

“What is the hotel?”

Craig wrote on a slip of paper what she told him—­“Room 509, Hotel La Coste.”

“Good—­I’m glad you called me.  Count on me,” he finished as he hung up the receiver.

Hastily he threw on his street coat.  “Go into the back room and get me that brace and bit, Walter,” he asked.

I did so.  When I returned, I saw that he had placed the detectascope and some other stuff in a bag.  He shoved in the brace and bit also.

“Come on—­hurry!” he urged.

We must have made record time in getting to the Coste.  It was an ornate place, where merely to breathe was expensive.  We entered and by some excuse Kennedy contrived to get past the vigilant bellhops.  We passed the telephone switchboard and entered the elevator, getting off at the fifth floor.

With a hasty glance up and down the corridor, to make sure no one was about, Kennedy came to room 509, then passed to the next, 511, opening the door with a skeleton key.  We entered and Craig locked the door behind us.  It was an ordinary hotel room, but well-furnished.  Fortunately it was unoccupied.