“Then let me go home,” Amy cried, panic-stricken by the thought of another interview with the resourceful Taylor. “I shall break down if I stay here.” “That will be best,” Ethel agreed, and went quickly to the door, behind which she found Duncan on guard. “Sorry, miss,” he said respectfully, “but you can’t go.” “I’m not leaving,” Ethel Cartwright explained, “I still have to talk with Mr. Taylor, but my sister must go. She isn’t feeling very well. She wants to go home.” Duncan shook his head. “Neither of you can go,” he returned, as he closed the door. Amy looked about her nervously for other means of escape. “You see,” she whispered, “they’re going to keep me here a prisoner! What shall I do?” “Leave everything to me,” Ethel commanded. “Let me do the talking. I shall be able to think of some way out.” “There isn’t, there isn’t!” Amy moaned. “Stop crying,” the elder insisted. “That won’t help us. I’ve thought of a plan. I’ll invent a story to fool him. He won’t be able to find out whether it’s true or not, so he’ll have to let us go, and when he does, he won’t get us back here again in a hurry.” “Oh, Ethel, you’re wonderful!” Amy exclaimed, her face clearing. In all her small troubles she had always gone to this beautiful, serene elder sister, who had never yet failed her and never would, she was confident. When Taylor entered a minute later he found the two girls looking out of the big window across the harbor. They seemed untroubled and unafraid and were discussing the dimensions of a big liner making her way out. “Sorry to have had to leave you,” he said briskly, “especially as things were getting a bit interesting.” Ethel Cartwright looked at him coldly. It was a glance which Taylor rightly interpreted as a warning to remember that he occupied a wholly different sphere from that of the daughters of the late Vernon Cartwright. But it daunted him little. The Secretary of the Treasury had just told him that his work was evoking great interest in Washington. And the Collector somewhat cryptically had said that Daniel Taylor might always be relied upon to do the unexpected. For Washington and Collectors, Taylor had little respect. Unconsciously he often paraphrased that royal boast, “_L’État c’est moi!_” by admitting to his confidants that he, Daniel Taylor, was the United States Customs. “I quite fail to see,” Miss Cartwright observed chillingly, “what all this rather impertinent cross-questioning of my sister has to do with--” “You will in a minute,” he interrupted. “Meanwhile,” she said, “I can’t wait any longer for those papers about the ring.” “There isn’t any ring,” he said suavely. “That was just a pretext to get you here. I was afraid the truth wouldn’t be sufficiently luring so I had to employ a ruse.” She looked at him, her eyes flashing at his daring to venture on such a deception. “You actually asked me to come here because you thought I had swindled the company?”