Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/152

 opens the street door and steps into the sunlight. "And this is the day, too, that Barker is to arrest Felton. He didn't specify any time, probably not till afternoon, anyway. I almost wish I wasn't assigned to that trial trip. I should like to interview him after the arrest. However, my story is all written up and I can get the details of the arrest from Barker after I return from the America. I wonder how Miss Hathaway will take the affair," a softer light shining in his eyes as his thoughts revert to the beautiful ward of Cyrus Felton. "She treats him with the utmost deference and respect, but I cannot think that she cares especially for him. Heigho! Now for a cup of coffee and then for another tete-a-tete with the beautiful unknown of the Raymond hotel."

It is on the stroke of 10 as Ashley saunters up to the clerk's desk in the Kensington and requests that his card, upon which he has penciled a few lines explaining his identity, be taken to Mrs. Winthrop.

"Mrs. Winthrop?" the urbane clerk repeats. "There is no such lady stopping here, to my knowledge."

Ashley is nonplused. So he has been duped, he thinks, by the fair unknown. But why has not Barker kept his agreement? A nice sort of a shadow if he cannot follow as striking-looking a woman as "Mrs. Winthrop." But stay! Perhaps she has given a fictitious name, but is actually stopping at the Kensington after all. Barker could not have slipped upon a simple matter like that.

Abstractedly twirling his glove, Jack leans over the desk and says in a low tone to the clerk, an old acquaintance: "Is there a rather striking-looking young woman, with dark eyes and midnight hair, stopping at the house?"

The clerk smiles.

"Sorry, Jack, but you are too late, I'm afraid. The beautiful Mrs. Harding left at 9 o'clock, bag and baggage."

Ashley turns thoughtfully away and repairs to the reading-room for a quiet think. So her name—for the present at least—is Mrs. Harding. But where is Barker? The detective is probably shadowing Mrs. Harding now. Ashley concludes that there is nothing for him to do but