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“Miss Ballister will be coming over from Washington to-morrow. She has a chair-car reservation on the Pennsylvania train leaving there at ten o’clock in the morning. I don’t know what train Madame Ybanca will take, but the news will be coming to me by wire before she is aboard the train. Each one of them is now being shadowed; each one of them will be shadowed for every moment while she is on her way and during her stay here; and of course Geltmann cannot stir a step outside his suite at the Hotel Atminster, on Fortieth Street, without being under observation. He didn’t know it, but he was under observation when he woke up yesterday morning.

“But I think these precautions are of mighty little value; I do not expect any important result from them. On the other hand, I am convinced that the transfer of the dispatch will be attempted under your cousin’s roof. I do not need to tell you why Geltmann should have sought to insure the presence of both women here at one time. He is smart enough; he knows that in this case there is an added element of safety for him in numbers–that it is better to have both present. Then unwittingly the innocent one will serve as a cover for the guilty one. I think he figures that should discovery of the theft come soon–he not knowing it already has come–then in such case there will be a divided trail for us to follow, one end pointing toward Miss Ballister and the other toward the madame. Or, at least, so I diagnose his mental processes.

“If I have diagnosed them correctly, the big part of the job, Miss Smith, is now up to you. We figure from what she told Westerfeltner that the paper will be concealed on the person of the woman we are after–in her hair perhaps, or in her bosom; possibly in that favourite cache of a woman–her stocking. At any rate she will have it hidden about her; that much we may count on for a certainty. And so it must be your task to prevent that paper from changing hands; better still, to get it into your own possession before it possibly can come under Geltmann’s eyes even for a moment. But there must be no scene, no violence used, no scandal; above all things there must be no publicity. Publicity is to be dreaded almost as much as the actual transfer.

“For my part I can promise you this: I shall be in the house of your cousin to-morrow night, if you want me to be there. That detail we can arrange through her: but naturally I must stay out of sight. You must do your work practically unaided. I guarantee though to insure you plenty of time in which to do it. Geltmann will not reach the party until later than he expects. The gentleman will be delayed by one or a number of annoying but seemingly unavoidable accidents. Beyond these points I have to confess myself helpless. After those two women pass inside Mrs. Hadley-Smith’s front door the real job is in your hands. You must find who has the paper and you must get it away from its present custodian without making threats, without using force–in short, without doing anything to rouse the suspicions beforehand of the person we are after, or to make the innocent woman aware that she is under scrutiny.

“Above all, nothing must occur to make any of the other guests realise that anything unusual is afoot. For that would mean talk on the outside, and talk on the outside means sensational stories in the newspapers. You can make no mistake, and yet for the life of me I cannot see how you are going to guard against making them. Everything depends on you, and that everything means a very great deal to our country. Yes, everything depends on you, because I am at the end of my rope.”