"Nothing--except that I don't think that report is there now," replied Williams. "Can you get to your office in ten minutes?" "I'll be there!" But a thorough search by the two of them failed to reveal any trace of the document. It had gone--vanished--in spite of the fact that the door was locked as usual. "Senator," announced the government agent, "a certain woman you know took that paper. She got in here with a false key, lifted the report and was out again in less than five minutes. The theft occurred shortly after midnight and--" "If you know so much about it, why don't you arrest her?" "I shall--before the hour is up. Only I thought you might like to know in advance how your friend the Countess Stefani worked. She was also responsible for the theft of the plans of the battleship _Pennsylvania_, you know." And Williams was out of the room before the look of amazement had faded from the Senator's face. Some thirty minutes later the Countess Sylvia was awakened by the sound of continued rapping on her door. In answer to her query, "Who's there?" a man's voice replied, "Open this door, or I'll break it in!" Williams, however, knew that his threat was an idle one, for the doors at Brickley Court were built of solid oak that defied anything short of a battering ram. Which was the reason that he had to wait a full five minutes, during which time he distinctly heard the sound of paper rattling and then the rasp of a match as it was struck. Finally the countess, attired in a bewitching negligee, threw open the door. "Ah!" she exclaimed. "So it is you, Mr. Williams! What do you--" "You know what I want," growled Owen. "That paper you stole from Lattimer's office to-night. Also the plans you lifted from the Navy Department. The ones you mailed in New York yesterday afternoon and which were waiting for you here!" "Find them!" was the woman's mocking challenge as Williams's eyes roved over the room and finally rested on a pile of crumbled ashes beside an alcohol lamp on the table. A moment's examination told him that a blue print had been burned, but it was impossible to tell what it had been, and there was no trace of any other paper in the ashes. "Search her!" he called to a woman in the corridor. "I'm going to rifle the mail-box downstairs. She can't get away with the same trick three times!" And there, in an innocent-looking envelope addressed to a certain personage whose name stood high on the diplomatic list, Williams discovered the report for which a woman risked her liberty and gambled six months of her life! * * * * * "But the plans?" I asked as Quinn finished.