Now fully dressed in his new garments--leaving his own clothes behind, he left the room, and locked the door, forgetting neither his brass checks, nor to place the bathhouse key on the ledge above the door. "So far so good," he whispered to himself. Curiously enough, however, he did not join the crowds upon the beach, but sought another bathing pavilion a quarter of a mile away--Helmstaedter's--where he was not known. There he repeated the process: went to the desk; obtained a twenty-five cent bathing-suit, but this time he deposited no valuables, having none that were visible. Then with his second bathing-suit he stepped into one of Helmstaedter's dressing-rooms, and again he undressed, stripping to the skin as before, and donning now the Helmstaedter bathing-suit, he opened the door, closed it behind him, and took his way to the beach. And now, since Peter V. had gone to Brighton Beach for the ostensible purpose of bathing, Peter V. bathed. But strangely enough, though he had Helmstaedter's bathing-suit upon him, he did not bathe from Helmstaedter's; on the contrary, he strode up the beach and bathed at Obermeyer's. An expert swimmer, he was known to the life guard, who saw him and warned him with: "Better look out, Mr. Wilkinson, two big men had cramps out there yesterday. I had the time of my life bringing them in." "Never mind me," laughed Wilkinson, "there's no fear of my having cramps to-day." And with that he plunged boldly into the surf. When the life guard last saw him, Wilkinson was merely a speck far out upon the surface of the sunlit sea. * * * * * That evening, while all New York was looking for him, while Hawkins and Watson were being soundly rated by the District Attorney, while Flomerfelt and Mrs. Peter V. were laying new plans, while Leslie wept in the silence of her room, that evening one of the Obermeyer helpers making his rounds, discovered the clothes of Peter V. Wilkinson, the Trust Company man, in his booth. The clerk at the desk produced the banker's wallet containing hundreds of dollars, his pin and other valuables. But the bathing-suit, the brass checks, and Peter V. Wilkinson were nowhere to be found. "Suicide," at once said the press; family and friends said "drowning accident," and the life guard backed them up. Furthermore, Hawkins produced the pistol and poisons taken from the trunks in Maine--evidences of suicidal intent. These strengthened and deepened the theory of suicide. Even Murgatroyd, after thinking it over, was satisfied that such was the case. As for Colonel Morehead, he would sit for hours in his office, staring at the wall, never coming to any conclusion. "Peter's certainly got me guessing," was the way he acknowledged his inability to solve the problem. Nor did the ocean ever give up Peter from its capacious depths.