"I noticed that," said Wynnie, "and was glad of it. I can't bear him, and never could." "Do you remember how Mr. Larkin looked at him?" "Yes, and he said----" "I can't stop, my dears," broke in the Colonel. "I'll enquire for the Spaniard at once and find him if he is in the hotel. Do you know where his lodgings are in Tokio?" Neither of them knew. Singularly enough, the man had never mentioned his lodging-place. He always dined at the hotel. Colonel Selborne found the Japanese official on the verandah, and at once took him into his confidence. They made enquiries and looked into every public room in the hotel. Bellardo was not there. "Leave the matter now with me," said the secret-service man quietly. "My men are near, and I will continue the search. In the morning you shall know the result, and I hope to be able to relieve you from further surveillance." Early the next morning the report was made by the chagrined but ever-polite officer. The bird had flown. Señor Bellardo's lodgings were known--as were those of every stranger in the city--to the police. They were visited before midnight, and found empty. The police in every seaport were notified by telephone and ordered to arrest a tall, well-dressed man, claiming to be a Spaniard, with dark complexion and black beard and moustache. His clothes were described, as well as a certain shifty look in his eyes. His bearing was that of one who had been trained in a military or naval school. Colonel Selborne and his party made affidavits before the American consul, telling everything they knew about the matter. As General Kafuro remembered leaving the paper on the very pile from which Wynnie had taken her sheet, there seemed to be no doubt that Edith's story accounted for the theft. Other papers of value had been missed from time to time since the war broke out, and it was believed at the Office that the so-called Spaniard was a dangerous spy in the pay of the Russians. General Kafuro congratulated Ethelwyn on having forced the man's hand, and, at the request of the consul, declared the American party free to leave Tokio whenever they wished. Colonel Selborne lost no time in availing himself of the permission and, with his wife and the two young ladies, sailed from Yokohama two days later. On the evening of the same day, when the _City of Pekin_ was heading eastward with the Americans on board, a small sailboat put out from a village on the west coast of the island. Besides the sailors it had one passenger--a gentleman with smooth face, light complexion, and red hair. The boatmen had agreed, for a large sum, to land him at the nearest point in Korea, unless they should previously fall in with a Russian war-ship. The latter contingency actually came to pass, as the boat was driven northward by a southerly storm, and picked up by one of the Vladivostock squadron, then cruising for prizes.