Douglas picked up the enclosed envelope with the words "The White House" stamped in small gold letters in the upper left-hand corner, and pulled out the engraved card. The gold eagle crest at the top of the invitation was almost stared out of countenance, so long and so steadily did he regard it, as he slowly weighed in his mind the events of the past three days. If the desk file used to kill the Senator did belong to Mrs. Owen, then Brett had woven strong circumstantial evidence around Captain Lane. Was it possible that the young officer, incensed at Senator Carew's threat to turn his niece, Cynthia, out of doors, and goaded past endurance by a possible tongue lashing at their last interview, had seized the opportunity offered by chance and killed Carew, an hereditary enemy? From time immemorial family feuds had, alas, often led to murder. If so, what, then, became of his own theory of an international intrigue? Were Senator Carew's interest in things Japanese, his desire to see Douglas, the information gleaned by the latter in Japan, the untimely death of the Senator, and last--the theft of the plans of the new battleships--were these simply coincidences? Douglas roused himself and glanced at the hour mentioned in the invitation--five o'clock. Jerking out his watch he found he had but half an hour in which to change his clothes before he was due at the White House. * * * * * Shortly afterward Douglas walked through Lafayette Square on his way to the eastern entrance of the White House. A long queue of smart turnouts and motors stretched along Pennsylvania Avenue from Seventeenth Street to Executive Avenue, as the short street between the Treasury Department and the White House is called. The policeman on special duty scrutinized his card of admission carefully before allowing him to pass down the corridor and out into the garden. The President and his wife were receiving on the lawn under a huge blossoming chestnut tree near the south portico. As Douglas waited in line to approach the President, he glanced about him with great interest. He had been to many brilliant functions in other countries, but he decided in his own mind that he had seldom seen a more beautiful setting for an entertainment than that afforded by the stately mansion and its surrounding gardens. The lovely rolling grounds, with their natural beauty, and the towering white shaft of the Washington Monument in the background, made a picture not easily forgotten.