"When did all this happen?" asked Orme. "Yesterday afternoon. Mr. Poritol came back to Chicago by trolley and got some money. He went back to the country justice and discovered that the marked bill had been paid out. He has followed it through several persons to you, just as Maku did, and as I have done. But I heard nothing of the Japanese." "You shouldn't have attempted this alone," said Orme, solicitously. She smiled faintly. "I dared not let anyone into the secret. I was afraid that a detective might learn too much." She sighed wearily. "I have been on the trail since morning." "And how did you finally get my address?" "The man who paid the bill in at the hat-shop lives in Hyde Park. I did not get to him until this evening, while he was at dinner. He directed me to the hat-shop, which, of course, was closed. I found the address of the owner of the shop in the directory and went to his house. He remembered the bill, and gave me the addresses of his two clerks. The second clerk I saw proved to be the one who had paid the bill to you. Luckily he remembered your address." Orme stirred himself. "Then the Japanese have the directions for finding the papers." "My predicament," said the girl, "is complicated by the question whether the bill does actually carry definite directions." "It carries something--a set of abbreviations," said Orme. "But I could not make them out. Let us hope that the Japanese can't. The best course for us to take is to go at once to see Walsh, the burglar." He assumed that she would accept his aid. "That is good of you," she said. "But it seems a little hopeless, doesn't it?" "Why? What else can we do? I suppose you saw to it that no one else should have access to Walsh." "Yes, father arranged that by telephone. The man is in solitary confinement. Several persons tried to see him to-day, on the plea of being relatives. None of them was admitted." What money-king was this girl's father, that he could thus regulate the treatment of prisoners? "So there were abbreviations on the bill?" she asked. "Yes. They weren't very elaborate, and I puzzled over them for some time. The curious fact is that, for all my study of them, I can't remember much of anything about them. What I have since been through, apparently, has driven the letters out of my head." "Oh, do try to remember," she implored. "Even if you recall only one or two bits of it, they may help me." "There was something about a man named Evans," he began. "S. R. Evans, it was." "Evans? That is strange. I can't think how anyone of that name could be involved." "Then S. R. Evans is not your father?" he ventured. "Oh, no." She laughed a light little laugh. "My father is--but are you sure that the name was Evans?" "Quite sure. Then there was the abbreviation 'Chi.'--which I took to mean 'Chicago.'" "Yes?" she breathed.