"Well," said her mother thoughtfully. Suddenly she looked at her secretary who entered at the moment. "Miss Hatch, you might get Chief Roberts on the 'phone--right away, please. Now, Anne, I am getting nervous; you had better go." "Yes, mother." Anne dropped a playful curtsey and left the room, smiling. Half an hour later, Armitage, squeezed into a beautifully made suit of tan whipcord, his calves swathed in putees, and a little cap with vizor pressing flat against his brows, was loitering about the garage with Ryan, a footman, and absorbing the gossip of the family. Prince Koltsoff was still there and intended, evidently, to remain for some time. This information, gained from what Anne Wellington had said to her mother, had relieved his mind of fears that his quarry had already gone, and he would have been quite at his ease had not the thought that the fact of Koltsoff's presence here rather argued against his having the control in his possession, occurred to him. Still, if the Russian had any of the instincts of a gentleman he could hardly break away from the Wellingtons at such short notice, and certainly not if he was, as Thornton surmised, interested in the daughter. Talk about the garage left him in no doubt of this. If the Prince had the missing part he would do one of three things: hold onto it until he left; mail it; or express it to St. Petersburg. Benoir, he had learned, carried the Wellington mail as well as express matter to the city, mornings and afternoons. In his absence, Armitage was, he felt, the logical man for this duty. So he did not worry about these contingencies. He had knowledge that up to eight o'clock that morning no package for foreign countries had been either mailed or expressed; this eliminated the fear, which might otherwise have been warrantable, that the package had already been sent on its way to Europe. Besides, no man of Koltsoff's experience would be likely to trust the delivery of so important an object to any but his own hands. Thus the probabilities were that the thing was at this minute in the Prince's room. If all these suppositions were wrong, then Yeasky had it. Armitage knew enough of the workings of the Secret Service Bureau to know that if the man got out of the country he would be an elusive person indeed, especially as he had a long, livid scar across his left cheek which could not be concealed with any natural effect.