“Well, if he’s at all suspicious of you and he’s as clever as you say he is, maybe he’s counting on your doing that very thing!” “What? Searching his rooms? Clayton, you’ve got a head on you!” “It’s just possible,” I answered. “So I think it would be better if I go. Then if I’m caught, he’ll take me for a burglar and not suspect you necessarily. I’ll take Larry with me, and if they’re planning to surprise me, maybe I’ll give them a surprise in return. Besides, if he does try to ambush me, we’ll know that he is suspicious of you.” So Moore agreed to this plan, if rather reluctantly, and gave me Vining’s address. He told me something else, too, that strengthened my conviction that it would be unwise for him to go. He was pretty sure, though not certain, that he was being followed. We discussed this rather disturbing news for a while, I told him my own news and we rang off. Some of this I explained to Larry. And then and there Larry made a suggestion which I was convinced would be of great value to me. “Sure, sor,” said Larry, “I’d burgle Dublin Castle itself wid the loikes of yerself. But I hate to burgle a house where they mebbe know you’re comin’.” “Can’t be helped, Larry. We’ve got to take that chance!” “Well, sor, mebbe we could get away from the loikes av thim, anyhow. But if this Vining is such a clever lad, he must be a real dangerous customer, sor?” “Shouldn’t be surprised, Larry.” “Well, then, mebbe ’twould do ye no good to get away from him, if he was to see yer face. Mebbe he’d get ye in the long last, in any case.” “That’s another chance we’ve got to take, Larry!” Larry scratched his head. “Well, sor, in me spare toime I’ve been dippin’ into some of these detecative shtories. ’Tis enough to make ye laugh, some av thim is, but there was one lad, a gintleman cracksman he called himself, that had some bright ideas. And one av thim was that he wore a mask.” “Been keeping in touch, have you, Larry?” I laughed. “But that’s a damned good idea, all the same. Go to one of the theatrical make-up stores in the West Forties this afternoon and get two of them. Then buy a kit of tools. Then go to Vining’s house and look over the lay of the land. He lives on the second floor.” And I told him the address. “Finally, Larry,” I added, “meet me with your kit at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue at nine o’clock to-night, and do _not_ bring a gun. If we’re going to have to injure any one, we’ve got to do it quietly. For we can’t afford any kind of publicity. That’s all, Larry.” Natalie and I went for a ride in the Park that Thursday morning, and for a few hours I forgot my quest. Perhaps I will be accused of lack of feeling for that. But I loved and longed for my little sister none the less because Natalie had come into my life.