Watkins vanished out the door at the psychological moment. Captain Stone and Kearney were coming down the stairs engaged in earnest conversation. So engrossed were they when they entered the room that they failed to notice the absence of Officer 666, whose uniform was strutting on the balcony while he himself lay anæsthetized in the chest. "How could he have been hiding in those portières, Kearney?" Captain Stone was saying. "I looked through them before I left the room." "I don't know how, Captain," replied Kearney, "but he was and Gladwin knew it." "You're sure of that?" "Positive." "I say, captain, do you know where Mr. Ryan is?" intervened the roving Barnes, who seemed to have bobbed up from nowhere in particular with Sadie in his train. "He may be in the cellar and he may be on the roof," snapped the captain. "Don't bother me now!" "But I must bother you, by Jove," persisted the frantic Barnes. "I demand that you send that man to unlock me. I'm not a prisoner or that sort of thing." Captain Stone ignored him, addressing Kearney: "Well, if he isn't out now--he can't get out without an airship. Still we had better search some more below stairs. Where's that man Phelan gone? Look out on the balcony, Kearney." Kearney stepped to the curtains, pulled them back, dropped them, and nodded, "He's out there." "Very well, let's go down into the cellar and work up. There isn't a room in the house now that isn't guarded." "But, dammit, Captain," exploded Barnes again, rattling his handcuffs. "Don't annoy me--can't you see I'm busy," was all the satisfaction he got as the captain and the Central Office man left the room. Sadie came forward shyly as the policemen left. "Did you find out where he is?" she asked anxiously. "In the cellar or on the roof. When I get to the roof he is in the cellar, and when I reach the cellar he is on the roof. He's more elusive than a ghost." "Whoever are you talking about?" cried Sadie. "Mr. Ryan, of course." "But I don't mean Mr. Ryan--I mean the chauffeur who came for Helen. I heard Mr. Kearney speaking about him upstairs." "Oh, there's a chauffeur after her, too?" said Barnes, enigmatically. "Yes, and wasn't it fortunate that the police arrived just in time to save her." "The police!" sniffed Barnes in disgust. "A lot they had to do with saving her." "Didn't they really?" "They did not. They bungled the whole thing up horribly. Why they'd have brought in a parson to marry them if it hadn't been"--Barnes managed to blush. "Then who did prevent the elopement?" asked Sadie, eagerly. "I can't get a word out of Helen on account of Auntie El." "Can't you guess?" said Barnes, mysteriously, looking down upon her with a sudden return of ardor. "Oh, did you do it?" and Sadie looked up at him from under her lashes. "Didn't I tell you I'd do it?" swelled Barnes. Sadie thanked him with her wonderfully expressive eyes. "Oh, it was nothing," shrugged Barnes.