She went into her dressing-room and for an hour or more worked over her face and hair, till she was certain that if the captain of the ship described her to any one else he could not fail to give a fair description of Florence Hargreave. But Norton reached the captain first. Other reporters had besieged him, but they had succeeded in gathering the vaguest kind of information. They had no description of Hargreave, while Norton had. Before going down to the boat, however, he had delved into the past of the Countess Olga Perigoff. It cost him a pocketful of money, but the end justified the means. The countess had no past worth mentioning. By piecing this and that together he became assured that she had told the simple truth regarding the relationship to Florence's mother. A cablegram had given him all the facts in her history; there were no gaps or discrepancies. It read clear and frank. Trust a Russian secret agent to know what he was talking about. [Illustration: NORTON REACHED THE CAPTAIN FIRST] So Norton's suspicions--and he had entertained some--were completely lulled to sleep. And he wouldn't have doubted her at all except for the fact that Braine had been with her when he had introduced Hargreave. Hargreave had feared Braine; that much the reporter had elicited from the butler. But there wasn't the slightest evidence. Braine had been in New York for nearly six years. The countess had arrived in the city but a year ago. And Braine was a member of several fashionable clubs, never touched cards, and seldom drank. He was an expert chess player and a wonderful amateur billiardist. Perhaps Jones, the taciturn and inscrutable, had not told him all he knew regarding his master's past. Well, well; he had in his time untangled worse snarls. The office had turned him loose, a free lance, to handle the case as he saw fit, to turn in the story when it was complete. But what a story it was going to be when he cleared it up! The more mystifying it was, the greater the zest and sport for him. Norton was like a gambler who played for big stakes, and only big stakes stirred his cravings. The captain of the tramp steamer _Orient_ told him the same tale he had told the other reporters: he had picked up a man at sea. The man had been brought aboard totally exhausted. "Was there another body anywhere?" "No." "What became of him?" "I sent a wireless and that seemed to bother him. It looked as though he did not want anybody to learn that he had been rescued. The moment the boat touched the pier he lost himself in the crowd. Fifty reporters came aboard, but he was gone. And I could but tell them just what I'm telling you." "He had money." "About five thousand." "Please describe him." The captain did so. It was the same description he had given to all the reporters. Norton looked over the rail at the big warehouse. "Was it an ordinary balloon?"