"Important!" Armitage threw himself into a chair and put his feet on the desk. "Well, Jackson, I fancy you might call it so. Damn!" The storekeeper whistled. "I shall have the rooms of the workmen searched." "Just one room, please; and quickly, will you?" rejoined Armitage, "Yeasky's. He is the only man who would have known its value. Give my compliments to the superintendent and ask him for some one to help you." As the storekeeper departed, Joe Thornton entered the office. "Any luck, Jack?" "Rotten! The magnetic control of the model is gone. I was right this morning and you were wrong, Joe. Yeasky got it. Why did n't I keep my hands on him, when I had him! Something told me to." "The deuce!" Thornton regarded his friend with a grave face. "Is it very serious? Does it give the whole snap away?" "It gives about ninety per cent more away than pleases me. It would take some genius long nights of labor to supply the other ten per cent even with the aid of the plans which no doubt Yeasky has copied. That is, there are one or two things that I kept off the paper--kept in my head." He paced up and down the floor. "But other men have heads, too. That thing has got to be returned, the quicker the better." "Well," Thornton smiled encouragingly. "Yeasky can't get out of the country--and he 'll be caught before he dopes the thing out. Even if he has mailed or expressed it, it can be held up before it leaves this country. You had the control in the model torpedo last night. Have you wired?" "I 've sent a general call to the secret service for him, to Boston, New York, and Washington. They are holding the telegrams, as long as letters, at the telegraph office for release. I 've also a wire to the Department on file, telling what has happened. I wrote before I knew what was gone, so I would n't have to lie in case he took what he did take." "Yes," agreed Thornton, "there is no use in letting on how bad it really is." Thornton was growing quite optimistic. "Yeasky can't get away; you 'll have the thing back here within three days." Armitage smiled. "Not through capturing Yeasky. He hasn't it now. You don't suppose he is enough of a fool to risk being caught with the goods, do you? He got that thing off his hands, quick." "Transferred it! Who to?" Armitage shrugged his shoulders. "To Prince Koltsoff." "Koltsoff! How do you know?" "How do I know anything that isn't as plain as a pikestaff? Common sense! Prince Koltsoff has that thing right now." Armitage grinned. "The noble guest of the house of Ronald Wellington playing the spy--and rather successfully. Quite an interesting society item, eh?" Thornton did not smile. "Look here, old man, what is your drift? Prince Koltsoff! Old boy, this is serious! It is nothing to smile about. Say, do you know what this means?"