"Can I?" echoed the girl. "The beast! He promised to marry me, more than two months ago, and then got infatuated with some blond chit of a chorus girl. Just because I lost my head and showed him a letter I had received--a letter warning me against him--he flew into a rage and threatened.... Well, never mind what he did say. The upshot of the affair was that he sent me out of town and gave me enough money to last me some time. But he'll pay for his insults!" "Have you the letter you received?" asked Randall, casually--as if it meant little to him whether the girl produced it or not. "Yes. I kept it. Wait a moment and I'll get it for you." A few seconds later she was back with a note, written in a feminine hand--a note which read: If you are wise you will ask the man who calls himself Carl Cheney what he knows of Paul Weiss, of George Winters, and Oscar Stanley. You might also inquire what has become of Florence and Rose. (Signed) AMELIA. Randall looked up with a puzzled expression. "What's all this about?" he inquired. "Sounds like Greek to me." "To me, too," agreed the girl. "But it was enough to make Carl purple with rage and, what's more, to separate him from several thousand dollars." "Weiss, Winters, and Stanley," mused Guy. "Those might easily be Cheney's former aliases. Florence, Rose, and Amelia? I wonder.... Come on, girl, we're going to take a ride down to City Hall! I've got a hunch!" Late that afternoon when Carl Cheney arrived at his hotel he was surprised to find a young man awaiting him in his apartment--a man who appeared to be perfectly at ease and who slipped over and locked the door once the count was safely within the room. "What does this mean?" demanded Cheney. "By what right--" "It means," snapped Randall, "that the game's up!" Then, raising his voice, he called, "Mrs. Weiss!" and a tall woman parted the curtains at the other end of the room; "Mrs. Winters!" and another woman entered; "Mrs. Stanley!" and a third came in. With his fingers still caressing the butt of the automatic which nestled in his coat pocket, Randall continued: "Cheney--or whatever your real name is--there won't be any invasion of Canada. We know all about your plans--in fact, the arsenal on West Houston Street is in possession of the police at this moment. It was a good idea and undoubtedly you would have cleaned up on it--were it not for the fact that I am under the far from painful necessity of arresting you on a charge of bigamy--or would you call it 'trigamy'? The records at City Hall gave you away, after one of these ladies had been kind enough to provide us with a clue to the three aliases under which you conducted your matrimonial operations. "Come on, Count. The Germans may need you worse than we do--but we happen to have you!" XVI AFTER SEVEN YEARS