For a minute Clifford thought he had solved the mystery--that he had his case complete, all except arranging for his arrests. Then Loveman entered the telephone booth beneath the stairway. That was a new element. What could Loveman be about? Clifford leaned out and strove to listen, but not one word of Loveman’s filtered through the closet’s sound-proof door. Loveman left the booth and rejoined the company. Clifford had noted a slit of light at one side of the darkened drawing-room, and toward this he now noiselessly made his way. The slit proved to be a parting in the heavy curtains between the drawing-and dining-rooms. Motionlessly Clifford watched the group of six--and all the while he wondered what Loveman’s telephoning could be about. There was drinking, and banter, and reassertions of Jack’s determination to prove himself a free spirit, and two stumbling attempts by Jack to dance with Nina to the music of his own singing--and thus half an hour passed. Presently there was a ring. At a word from Loveman, the evilly handsome young man--“Slim” Harrison, Clifford knew him to be, a crack driver of racing-cars, and a proficient in all the evils of Broadway--rose and left the drawing-room and passed forward through the hallway. Clifford heard him open the front door, and remark courteously: “Come right in--Mr. Clifford is waiting for you.” Footsteps--two pairs of them--returned down the hallway, and then Clifford saw Slim Harrison swing apart the other pair of tapestries, saying, “They’re waiting for you in here.” And then stepping into the brilliant light of the great dining-room he saw Mary Regan. Two paces within the doorway she suddenly halted. “Where’s Mr. Clifford and Lieutenant Kelly?” she exclaimed. Clifford saw her stiffen and sharply eye the group at the table. Then her gaze fixed upon Jack, and she said quietly enough: “Jack--I’ve come to take you home.” Jack swayed uncertainly to his feet, his face sagging with amazement. “Why--why--Mary--” But Clifford heard nothing of the next few sentences. That instant he understood it all--or thought he did. He knew now the substance of Loveman’s telephone message. He saw now the magnitude of this present situation just before him. Loveman’s great scheme--the whole of it--had been planned and drawn together, and timed to take place within that hour. Clifford did not yet prevision the exact character of the further developments--but what better place for it than Le Bain’s house, from which no sound issued, which kept secret all it saw and heard? Swiftly, silently, Clifford slipped out into the hallway, into the telephone closet, and closed the sound-proof door. He got the Knickerbocker Hotel on the wire, and a few minutes later he was snapping out sentences to Uncle George.