The Camera Chap smiled. “That is the story which is generally accepted,” he said quietly. “But there is a possibility that the world may have done President Felix a great injustice.” “What do you mean?” Paxton asked, looking searchingly in the other’s face. “It now appears,” said the Camera Chap, “that instead of being a fugitive and an absconder, Felix may really have been the victim of a daring conspiracy; that instead of being free in some part of Europe at this moment, living in luxury on his loot, the unhappy man is in reality eating out his heart in a South American dungeon--where he has been ever since that fatal night that he is supposed to have skipped from Baracoa in his private yacht. In other words, Tom, it was all a frame-up. According to this story, Felix was kidnaped by the Portiforo party, who, realizing that he was too strong with the people to be deposed by an ordinary revolution, took this means of discrediting him and seizing the reins of government.” Editor Paxton smiled incredulously. “Sounds pretty far-fetched. Yet I don’t know,” he added musingly. “Almost anything is possible down in that part of the continent; and I recall that there were some circumstances about Felix’s disappearance which struck me at the time as queer. There is the fact, for instance, that he has never been seen since the day his yacht reached the south coast of France.” “He wasn’t seen even then,” Hawley reminded him. “At least, there is no proof that the man who came ashore was really Felix. The only persons who saw him were some French peasants, and, of course, they wouldn’t know Felix by sight.” “There was the crew of the yacht,” Paxton suggested. “You are forgetting, perhaps, that later on they were caught and they admitted the whole business.” “It is possible that they were in the conspiracy,” Hawley argued. “Every member of the crew could have been a Portiforo agent, carefully instructed as to the story he was to tell.” The managing editor nodded. “Yes; that’s possible. By George!” he added, a glint in his eyes, “what a wonderful story--if it should be true. Where on earth did you get hold of it?” “At the White House,” the Camera Chap replied, sinking his voice almost to a whisper. “What! You don’t mean to say the president believes it?” “Not exactly. In fact, he is strongly inclined to think that it is a preposterous theory concocted by Portiforo’s enemies. Still, there is a doubt in his mind. That is why I am going to Baracoa.” “He is sending you there to investigate this yarn?” “To find Felix, if he is really in Baracoa, and to bring back a snapshot of him,” Hawley said simply.