Schilder laughed. “The Dolliver Foundry can hardly afford, my dear sir, to have a mystery of this sort taking place on its premises without at least a show of effort on my part to clear it up. Delay, moreover, merely makes the matter look worse for us; so, although I dislike needless notoriety as much as any of the rest of you, I----” Instead of completing the sentence, he reached out for the telephone on his desk. “What are you going to do?” demanded Appleby sharply. “Call up the chief of police, and place the matter in his hands.” “The chief of police!” The major gave a violent start, and glanced uneasily at his companions. Only Grail seemed unperturbed, and the side glance he cast at Schilder was distinctly skeptical. It was almost as though he said: “I dare you to make good your bluff.” The major lost no time, however, in entering a remonstrance. “Oh, I beg of you, Mr. Schilder,” he urged, “let us not do anything rash! There are--er--certain matters which I am loath to mention here, but which, provided the officers at the fort have sufficient time to sift them out, will, I am sure, bring a speedy solution. You bear me out in this, do you not, gentlemen?” he appealed to his two companions. They assented, and it was noticeable that in doing so both carefully avoided looking in the direction of the adjutant. Schilder, a mocking twinkle in his eye, turned toward Grail. “And you, captain?” he asked. “Can you give me the same assurance?” The young officer met his gaze steadily. “Why not?” he said. “To my mind, the investigation simply resolves itself into a matter of determining the authorship of the note received by the colonel, and surely we at the fort are as competent to handle that as some blundering policeman.” Major Appleby gave a grunt of recollection, and his manner toward Grail relaxed. “Ah, yes,” he said, with evident relief. “I had forgotten for the moment the existence of that clew. The note is at headquarters, I presume, captain?” Grail nodded. “I left it on my desk, when the colonel and I came away.” “Then, come,” urged the major, moving toward the door; “let us lose no time in taking a look at it. We can trust you, I suppose, Mr. Schilder, to take no action until you hear from us?” “Anything in reason, major,” the manager agreed. “And I certainly hope for all our sakes that you meet with quick success.” After he had returned from seeing the party off in their automobile, however, and had closed his desk for the night, he lingered a moment in the office before taking his departure. “I wonder,” he muttered thoughtfully, “if that man Grail is stringing me, or am I stringing him?” Meanwhile, as the motor car swiftly left the factory chimneys and slumlike streets of the river front behind, and climbed the hilly streets back toward the fort, Major Appleby turned toward the adjutant, who sat beside him in the tonneau.