"Sit down, please." Brett pushed forward a chair for Eleanor, and the others grouped themselves about the center table. By common consent they all avoided Colonel Thornton's favorite armchair. "I am anxious to have a talk with you because there are several loose threads to this mystery which must be straightened out." "What are they?" questioned Lane impatiently; he longed to be back with Cynthia. "On my return from the River Road to headquarters I found an answer from the Paris police to my cable. They tell me, Miss Thornton, that your maid, Annette, was an international spy." "Great heavens!" ejaculated Eleanor, in round-eyed astonishment. "She was also in the habit of impersonating you." Eleanor's face was a study. "She had clothes made exactly like yours, even her kimono was a duplicate. From what I hear, Mr. Hunter, I judge Annette, who you recollect was in the hall when we were discussing the mysterious letter written by Senator Carew, decided to try and find it, and that's why she paid you a visit in the library last Tuesday night. She did not know that I had asked you to sleep there." "I was grossly deceived in her," declared Eleanor bitterly. "I presume her splendid recommendations were all----" "Forgeries," supplemented Brett. "Quite right, they must have been. I have just talked with one of the nurses from Providence Hospital who attended Philip Winthrop, and he declares that he caught Annette trying to give Philip a sleeping powder. Probably she wished to reap all the reward that she could, through blackmail and otherwise, and was afraid if Philip saw me that he would spoil her 'scoop.' With her usual habit of involving you, Miss Thornton, she made that crazy fool believe you were drugging him." "Will you please explain to me," broke in Fred Lane, "why Mrs. Winthrop swore out a warrant for my arrest? What led her to believe me guilty?" "Mrs. Winthrop wished me to tell you, Captain Lane, that she bitterly regrets her hasty action. I never saw anyone so completely broken up. It seems she wanted that graceless stepson of hers to marry her niece, Miss Carew, so that he would eventually inherit the Carew fortune. Then she has a natural antipathy for you because you are your father's son, and she was, unfortunately, only too ready to believe you guilty. Annette told her a number of lies,"--Brett shrugged his shoulders expressively,--"and there you have it--along with other circumstantial evidence, which would have pretty nearly convicted you." Lane flushed angrily. "So Mrs. Winthrop took the word of a worthless servant, the better to humiliate me...." "Had Annette any grounds for her accusation?" questioned Brett swiftly. "Mrs. Owen said her library desk file mysteriously disappeared the night of her dance."