"How about the third guard, the one who escaped?" asked Seaton. "He wasn't here. It was his afternoon off, you know, and he said that he wouldn't come back into this job on a bet--that he wasn't afraid of anything ordinary, but he didn't like the looks of things out here. That sounded fishy to me, and I fired him. He may have been the leak, of course, though I have always found him reliable before. If he did leak, he must have got a whale of a slice for it. He is under constant watch, and if we can ever get anything on him, I will nail him to the cross. But that doesn't help get this affair straightened out. I haven't given up, of course, there are lots of things not tried yet, but I must admit that temporarily, at least, I am up a stump." "Well," remarked Seaton, "that million-dollar reward will bring him in, sure. No honor that ever existed among thieves, or even among free-lances of diplomacy, could stand that strain." "I'm not so sure of that, Dick," said Crane. "If either one of our ideas is the right one, very few men would know enough about the affair to give pertinent information, and they probably would not live long enough to enjoy the reward very thoroughly. Even a million dollars fails in that case." "I rather agree with Mr. Crane, Seaton. If it were an ordinary affair--and I am as sure it is not as the police are that it is--a reward of that size would get us our man within two days. As it is, I doubt very much that the reward will do us any good. I'm afraid that it will never be claimed." "Wonder if the Secret Service could help us out? They'd be interested if it should turn out to be some foreign power." "I took it up with the Chief himself, just after it happened last night. He doesn't think that it can be a foreign country. He has their agents pretty well spotted, and the only one that could fill the bill--you know a man with that description and with the cold nerve to do the job would be apt to be known--was in San Francisco, the time this job was pulled off." * * * * * "The more you talk, the more I am convinced that it was DuQuesne himself," declared Seaton, positively. "He is almost exactly my size and build, is the only man I know of who could do anything with the solution after he got it, and he has nerve enough to do anything." "I would like to think it was DuQuesne," replied the detective, thoughtfully, "but I'm afraid we'll have to count him out of it entirely. He has been under the constant surveillance of my best men ever since you mentioned him. We have detectaphones in his rooms, wires on his telephone, and are watching him night and day. He never goes out except to work, never has any except unimportant telephone calls, and the instruments register only the occasional scratching of a match, the rustle of papers, and other noises of a man studying. He's innocent."