His confident expression faded the next moment when his hand came out empty of his well-stocked wallet. In changing to rough-and-readies, he had forgotten to transfer from his tweeds the price of adventure in a great city. Except for several crumpled small bills and certain loose change in his trouser pocket, he was without financial resource. His attempt at a hopeful glance in Jane’s direction weakened under the thought that, even were she not a self-declared poor relation, she wouldn’t be carrying ten century notes on her person. “I’ve got telephone and war-tax money, anyhow,” he observed cheerfully. “Lead me to a booth and I’ll have Mr. Astor chip in the ante. Sorry on mother’s account about the delay. She ain’t used to late hours in police stations.” “It might take quite a while to convince the hotel that you are you,” Jane demurred. “As it did you, Jane?” She ignored his _sotto voce_ aside. “Why not let me send for collateral, Mr. Sergeant? I live just across the avenue.” “Oh, you do, eh?” “That is, my aunt does. They wouldn’t have a thousand dollars in the house, but you’d take jewelry, wouldn’t you, if it was worth several times the amount?” Assuming his consent and thanking him with a radiant smile, she motioned Adonis Moore to one side and advised with him a moment in an undertone. “Be sure to ask for Miss Sturgis, not Mrs.” Her final direction held over Pape’s protest. “Under no circumstance alarm my aunt. And don’t say who is in trouble—just that a good friend of hers needs jewelry bail. She’ll be thrilled by the mystery. She’ll manage.” The ensuing wait seemed to try the chief culprit more than his young-old lady “friend.” While she sat at comparative ease in the absent lieutenant’s desk chair behind the railing, he paced outside. His interest in the sergeant had lapsed on that worthy’s refusal to discuss Swinton Welch’s connection with the case and he leant only half an ear to the preferred discussion of the latest crime wave which had dashed up to park shores from the ocean of post-war inactivity. The entrance of Irene Sturgis was “staged”—anticipated, timed, well-lit. After her first burst into the room, she stopped short beneath the electric glare, unbelievably lovely in a blush-pink evening wrap over a gown of vari-tinted tulle. Her back-thrown curls, her heightened color, her parted lips and wide eyes—all proclaimed her utter astonishment at the scene before her. Her surveying glance began with the “costumed” Westerner standing before the high oaken desk of arraignment, swept to the bent old lady in black, on to the gray-mustached sergeant and the pompous arresting officer, then back to its starting point.