“I quite see what you mean,” Barry interrupted: “that the girl on the balcony was the beginning of delirium _after_ I had banged my head? Well, of course, it’s impossible to explain how I know it, but you are wrong. I certainly saw her. And what adds to my certainty is the curious behaviour of the people who took care of me afterward.” “You mean the man who brought you to the hospital and the one who towed your car to the garage?” “Why, certainly!” Barry replied. “As not a thing was stolen, either from me personally or out of the Rolls, why should these people have deliberately kept in the background?” “I see your point,” said his father slowly; “but I rather think there was only one man concerned.” “I believe you are right,” Barry agreed; “and I believe that this man was acting for the girl I saw at the window!” John Cumberland looked up, fumbling for his lighter. “Now,” he confessed, “I don’t entirely follow you.” “I mean, Dad,” Barry explained excitedly, “that she must have seen me. She was looking at me. If I saw _her_, she certainly saw _me!_” John Cumberland lighted his cigar. “Now I begin to follow,” he nodded. “You mean that she didn’t want you to trace her?” “Exactly!” “You are sure she saw you? A flash of lightning such as you describe would have a very blinding effect.” “It did,” Barry admitted ruefully, “in _my_ case! But the crash took place less than twenty yards from the spot where she was standing.” “Yes,” his father mused; “probably you are right. You think that she sent this mysterious man with the Studebaker to your assistance, had you taken to the hospital in Elizabeth, and then had the Rolls towed to a distant garage, with the idea that you would be unable to find the spot later? Rather a hazard. How was she to know that you were unfamiliar with the neighbourhood?” “She might have thought it worth a chance, at any rate.” “But the object?” John Cumberland exclaimed. “What could be the object? Was she very inadequately dressed? I mean was she likely to feel ashamed of having been seen in such a condition?” “Why, no,” said Barry reflectively. “She was very strangely dressed, and, as far as that goes, scantily. But in these days that wouldn’t upset her. There’s some mystery about it--of this I am certain. To-morrow I am going exploring. I wish you could come.” “Unfortunately I can’t,” was the reply. “I have two important conferences. But if you go, let Hemingway drive you. You have had a devil of a knock on the head, my boy, and you shouldn’t overtax yourself.” Barry, however, had planned to go with Jim Sakers, who claimed to know the country like the palm of his hand. And on the following morning the two made an early start, beneath a cloudless sky which lent the towering buildings of New York an unfamiliar ethereal quality.