"I have authority to take a hand in this affair. We can not waste all summer. Those government plans of the fortifications of the Panama are waiting. There's your millions. But the fact remains that it is the law of the Black Hundred never to step down till absolutely defeated. The hidden million is but half; we must find and break this renegade Hargreave." "If he lives," said Braine. "Who can say one way or the other?" bruskly asked Paroff. "The fact that all your plans and schemes have come to naught should prove to you that you are not fighting a ghost. There is but one way to bring out the truth." "And that is to make a captive of his daughter," supplemented Braine. "And we have worked toward that end ceaselessly. We are quite ready to listen to your suggestions, count." "And so am I," thought the man with his ear to the little hole in the ceiling above. "And some day, my energetic friend, I'm going to pay you back for that bullet." Count Paroff cleared his voice and laid his plans before his audience. "To act frankly and in the open, to go boldly to the Hargreave home and proclaim myself Hargreave. I can disguise myself in a manner that will at least temporarily fool the butler." "Who has been with his master for fourteen years, knows every move, habit, gesture, inflection," interposed Braine. "But proceed, count, proceed. You will remember the old adage; too many cooks." "Ah," flashed back the count, "but a new cook?" Olga touched Braine's arm warningly. "You mean, then, that there has been talk in St. Petersburg of disposing of some one?" "A good deal of talk, sir," haughtily, forgetting that he had bent humbly enough but a few moments gone. "Very well; go on." Thought the man at the peephole above: "There's another adage. When thieves fall out, then honest men get their dues. Yes, yes; proceed, proceed!" Paroff went on. "I shall, then, go frankly to the Hargreave house and claim my own. Meantime I leave to you the business of luring the butler away. Half an hour is all I need to bring that child here, to break the wall that stands between us and what we seek." "Is that so?" murmured Braine. "Olga, I want you to play a trick on this handsome delegate-at-large. I'm not very enthusiastic over his talk. I want him humiliated. All you have to do, he says, is to walk into the Hargreave house and walk out again. Well, let's you and I see that he does that and nothing else. I'll have no one meddling with my own game." Some one sneezed, and everybody looked at his neighbor. The sneeze was repeated, but muffled, as if some one was desperately anxious to avoid sneezing. "It came from above!" whispered Olga. "Don't look up!" Braine was cool. He walked idly across the room to where Vroon sat. "Very well, Paroff; we give you free rein." To Vroon he said: "Some one is watching us from the room overhead. I thought that room belonged to us." "It does," said Vroon stolidly.