She shook her head. "No. He is not the man." Seeing that I waited for her to go on, she resumed: "I know Count James quite well, however. He is my husband's closest friend." "Good heaven," said I, in quick alarm. "That complicates matters, doesn't it? He may come here at any time." "It isn't likely, Mr. Smart. To be perfectly honest with you, I waited until I heard you had bought the castle before coming here myself. We were in hiding at the house of a friend in Linz up to a week ago. I did not think it right or fair to subject them to the notoriety or the peril that was sure to follow if the officers took it into their heads to look for me there. The day you bought the castle, I decided that it was the safest place for me to stay until the danger blows over, or until father can arrange to smuggle me out of this awful country. That very night we were brought here in a motor. Dear old Conrad and Mrs. Schmick took me in. They have been perfectly adorable, all of them." "May I enquire, madam," said I stiffly, "how you came to select my abode as your hiding place?" "Oh, I have forgotten to tell you that we lived here one whole summer just after we were married. Count Hohendahl let us have the castle for our--our honey-moon. He was here a great deal of the time. All sorts of horrid, nasty, snobbish people were here to help us enjoy our honeymoon. I shall never forget that dreadful summer. My only friends were the Schmicks. Every one else ignored and despised me, and they all borrowed, won or stole money from me. I was compelled to play bridge for atrociously high stakes without knowing one card from the other. But, as I say, the Schmicks loved me. You see they were in the family ages and ages before I was born." "The family? What family?" "The Rothhoefen family. Haven't they told you that my great-grandmother was a Rothhoefen? No? Well, she was. I belong to the third generation of American-born descendants. Doesn't it simplify matters, knowing this?" "Immensely," said I, in something of a daze. "And so I came here, Mr. Smart, where hundreds of my ancestors spent their honeymoons, most of them perhaps as unhappily as I, and where I knew a fellow-countryman was to live for awhile in order to get a plot for a new story. You see, I thought I might be a great help to you in the shape of suggestion." She smiled very warmly, and I thought it was a very neat way of putting it. Naturally it would be quite impossible to put her out after hearing that she had already put herself out to some extent in order to assist me. "I can supply the villain for your story if you need one, and I can give you oceans of ideas about noblemen. I am sorry that I can't give you a nice, sweet heroine. People hate heroines after they are married and live unhappily. You--"