I turned slowly away. The hall porter followed me. He was drawing something from his waistcoat pocket. "I wouldn't do a thing," he declared, "to get Mr. Parker into any trouble --for a nicer, freer-handed gentleman never came inside the hotel; but I don't know as there's much harm in showing you this, being as you're a friend. I picked it up in the sitting room after they'd gone." He held out a cablegram. Before I realized what I was doing, I had read it. It was handed in at New York: "Look out! H----sailed last Saturday!" "Pretty badly scared of H----he was!" the hall porter remarked. "Ten minutes after that cablegram came they were hard at it, packing." I gave the man a tip and drove back to my rooms, where I spent a restless morning, then lunched at my club and returned to the Milan afterward, only in the hope that I might find there a note or a message. There was nothing, however. Just as I was starting to go out the telephone bell rang. I took up the receiver. It was Eve's voice. "Is that Mr. Walmsley?" "It is," I admitted. "How are you, Eve?" "Quite well, thank you." "Still in London?" "Certainly. Would you like to come and have tea with me?" "Rather!" I replied enthusiastically. "Where are you?" "Hiding!" "That's all right," I replied. "I shan't give it away. Where shall I find you?" "Well," she said, "we talked it over and decided that the best hiding place was one of the larger hotels. We are at the Ritz." "I'll come right along if I may." "Very well," she agreed. "Ask for Mr. Bundercombe." I groaned under my breath, but I made no further comment; and in a very few minutes I presented myself at the Ritz Hotel. I was escorted upstairs and ushered into a very delightful suite on the second floor. Eve rose to meet me from behind a little tea-table. She was charmingly dressed and looking exceedingly well. Mr. Bundercombe, on the other hand, who was walking up and down the apartment with his hands behind his back, was distinctly nervous. He nodded at my entrance. "How are you, Walmsley?" he said. "How are you?" "I am quite well, sir, thank you," I replied, a little stupefied. "Say, I'm afraid we are making a great mistake here," he went on anxiously. "We've slipped a point too near to the wind this time." "If you'll allow me to tell you exactly what I think," I ventured, "frankly I think you have made a mistake. There's that matter of Reggie Sidley. He was worrying me all yesterday morning to find out where you were, and when I evaded the point he told me straight that he didn't believe you were the Bundercombes at all. He is always in and out of this place, and if he sees your name on the register--or his mother, Lady Enterdean, sees it--it seems to me it's about all up!"