“No,” Taylor told him. “Just let him slide through with the ordinary examination. Trail Denby and his party to Westbury and be sure none of them slip the necklace to anyone on the way out there, but no fuss and no arrests, remember. Meanwhile, get up a fake warrant for the arrest of Miss Amy Cartwright. It may come in handy.” “Yes, sir,” said Duncan obediently. “And when you’ve told Ford and Hammett what they are to do, change your clothes and make Gibbs do the same, and meet me at the Pennsylvania Station at six o’clock.” “Where are we going?” Duncan asked. He could see from his chief’s manner that something important was in the wind. “To Long Island,” he was told. “We are going to call on Miss Ethel Cartwright.” “Then you can use her to land Denby?” his subordinate cried excitedly. “Use her?” the deputy-surveyor said with a grim smile. “Say, Jim, she doesn’t know it, but she’s going to get that necklace for me to-night.” He hurried out of the room, leaving Duncan shaking his head in wonderment. His chief might have qualities that were not endearing, and his manner might at times be rough, but where was there a man who rode through obstacles with the same fine disregard as Daniel Taylor? CHAPTER SEVEN Mrs. Harrington admitted freely that she had been very far-seeing in asking Denby to travel on the Mauretania with her and Monty. She was one of those modern women who count days damaging to their looks if there comes an hour of boredom in them, and her new acquaintance was always amusing. One day when they were all three sitting on deck she asked him: “What are you going to do when you get home?” “Nothing particular,” he replied, “except that I want to run down to Washington some time during the month.” “You see,” Monty explained, “Steve is a great authority on the tariff. The Secretary of the Treasury does nothing without consulting him. He has to go down and help the cabinet out.” “That’s hardly true,” Denby said mildly, “but I have friends in Washington nevertheless.” It was obvious Monty was not taken in by this. He only regarded his friend as a superb actor who refused to be frightened by the hourly alarms his faithful assistant took to him with fast-beating heart. Young Vaughan told himself a dozen times a day that this excitement, this suspicion of the motives of all strangers, was undermining his health. He had complained of the dull evenness of his existence before meeting Denby in Paris, but he felt such a lament could never again be justified. He found himself unable to sit still for long. He marvelled to see that Denby could sit for hours in a deck-chair talking to Alice without seeming to care whether mysterious strangers were eyeing him or not. “I asked you,” Mrs. Harrington went on, “because, if you’ve nothing better to do, will you spend a week with us at Westbury? Michael will like you, and if you don’t like Michael, there’s something seriously wrong with you.”