"It doesn't look like an inside job," was the parting comment of the head of the Secret Service. "Anyone who had access to the safe would have made some excuse to discover the combination, rather than rely on listening to the click of the tumblers. Better get after the night watchman and see if he can give you a line on any strangers who were around the building last night." But the night watchman when roused from his sound forenoon's sleep was certain that no one had entered the building on the previous evening save those who had business there. "Everybody's got to use a pass now, you know," he stated. "I was on the job all night myself an' divvle a bit of anything out of the ordinary did I see. There was Mr. McNight and Mr. Lester and Mr. Greene on the job in the telegraph room, and the usual crowd of correspondents over in the press room, and a score of others who works there regular, an' Mrs. Prentice, an'--" "Mrs. who?" interrupted Taylor. "Mrs. Prentice, wife of th' Third Assistant Secretary. She comes down often when her husband is working late, but last night he must have gone home just before she got there, for she came back a few minutes later and said that the office was dark." Whatever Taylor's thoughts were at the moment he kept them to himself--for Prentice was the man from whose safe the cipher key had been abstracted! So he contented himself with inquiring whether the watchman was certain that the woman who entered the building was Mrs. Prentice. "Shure an' I'm certain," was the reply. "I've seen her and that green evening cape of hers trimmed with fur too often not to know her." "Do you know how long it was between the time that she entered the building and the time she left?" persisted Taylor. "That I do not, sir. Time is something that you don't worry about much when it's a matter of guarding the door to a building--particularly at night. But I'd guess somewhere about five or ten minutes?" "Rather long for her to make her way to the office of her husband, find he wasn't there, and come right back, wasn't it?" "Yes, sir--but you must remember I wasn't countin' the minutes, so to speak. Maybe it was only three--maybe it was ten. Anyhow, it was just nine-thirty when she left. I remember looking at the clock when she went out." From the watchman's house, located well over in the northeastern section of the city, Taylor made his way to Madelaine James's apartment on Connecticut Avenue, discovering that young lady on the point of setting off to keep a luncheon engagement. "I won't keep you a minute, Madelaine," promised the Secret Service operative. "Just want to ask what you know about Mrs. Mahlon Prentice?" "Wife of the Third Assistant Secretary of State?" Taylor nodded. "She's a Chicago woman, I believe. Came here a couple of years ago when her husband received his appointment. Rather good-looking and very popular. I happened to be at a dinner with her last evening and--" "You what?"