“I guess it’s all right,” he said.  “Perhaps it was only Jensen, the janitor.”

Elaine, Aunt Josephine and Susie Martin entered.  Craig placed chairs for them, but still I could see that he was uneasy.  From time to time, while they were admiring one of our treasures after another, he glanced about suspiciously.  Finally he moved over to a closet and flung the door open, ready for anything.  No one was in the closet and he closed it hastily.

“What is the trouble, do you think?” asked Elaine wonderingly, noticing his manner.

“I—­I can’t just say,” answered Craig, trying to appear easy.

She had risen and with keen interest was looking at the books, the pictures, the queer collection of weapons and odds and ends from the underworld that Craig had amassed in his adventures.

At last her eye wandered across the room.  She caught sight of her own picture, occupying a place of honor—­but hanging askew.

“Isn’t that just like a man!” she exclaimed laughingly.  “Such housekeepers as you are—­such carelessness!”

She had taken a step or two across the room to straighten the picture.

“Miss Dodge!” almost shouted Kennedy, his face fairly blanched, “Stop!”

She turned, her stunning eyes filled with amazement at his suddenness.  Nevertheless she moved quickly to one side, as he waved his arms, unable to speak quickly enough.

Kennedy stood quite still, gazing at the picture, askew, with suspicion.

“That wasn’t that way when we left, was it, Walter?” he asked.

“It certainly was not,” I answered positively, “There was more time spent in getting that picture just right than I ever saw you spend on all the rest of the room.”

Craig frowned.

As for myself, I did not know what to make of it.

“I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to step into this back room,” said Craig at length to the ladies.  “I’m sorry—­but we can’t be too careful with this intruder, whoever he was.”

They rose, surprised, but, as he continued to urge them, they moved into my room.

Elaine, however, stopped at the door.

For a moment Kennedy appeared to be considering.  Then his eye fell on a fishing rod that stood in a corner.  He took it and moved toward the picture.

On his hands and knees, to one side, down as close as he could get to the floor, with the rod extended at arm’s length, he motioned to me to do the same, behind him.

Elaine, unable to repress her interest took a half step forward, breathless, from the doorway, while Susie Martin and Aunt Josephine stood close behind her.

Carefully Kennedy reached out with the pole and straightened the picture.

As he did so there was a flash, a loud, deafening report, and a great puff of smoke from the fireplace.

The fire screen was riddled and overturned.  A charge of buckshot shattered the precious photograph of Elaine.