We rather prided ourselves on our cleverness as we sat back in a reserved of the Lyons-Mediterranean Express, and watched the Tour Eiffel fade against the sky. We had moved with considerable celerity. First, we had loaded ourselves and baggage into waiting taxis in front of the hotel. Then we had driven in these to the Gare de l'Est, in and out of that whirlpool of life, and reëntered two other taxis, which we had directed in a reasonless through the central district of Paris.  
Then Nikka and I had left Hugh and Watkins with the taxis in a side-street near the Madeleine, and bought the tickets at Cook's. We had returned to the taxis by a roundabout route, and resumed our crazy progress from one side of the river to the other and back again, now crawling up the slopes of Montmartre, now threading the narrow ways of the du Cite, now buried in the depths of the Quartier, now spinning through the Bois. We had lunched at a roadhouse, and returned to the station just in time to climb aboard the train. And finally, instead of risking the separation by of the lit, we had elected to ourselves in a single compartment and sleep as best we could.
 
Hugh voiced the sentiments of three of us, when he stretched out his legs and exclaimed:
 
"What price Toutou's vermin now? I jolly well bet they us artful ."
 
Nikka smiled.
 
"Don't be too sure," he cautioned. " detection is their life-work. We are only amateurs."
 
"Rats," Hugh. "Sherlock Holmes, himself, couldn't have traced us, eh, Watty?"
 
"I'm sure I don't see 'ow any one could 'ave followed us, your ludship," replied the valet wearily. "I don't quite know where I am myself, sir."
 
"I fear you haven't any submerged criminal instincts, Watty," chaffed Hugh. "Now I find myself gettin' a bit of a thrill out of this hide-and-seek stuff. By Jove, I almost wish we had the police after us, too. That would be a treat!"
 
"A fair treat!" Watkins. "I mean no disrespect, your ludship, and it may be there's no call for the remark, but glad I'll be when this treasure is safe in the bank and we can go 'ome to Chesby."
 
We all laughed.
 
"How about dinner?" I asked. "Shall we eat by shifts or—"
 
"What's the use?" returned Hugh. "We haven't anything that will do 'em any good, and besides, they're peekin' into all the of the Orient Express at this moment."
 
So we together to the restaurant-car, dragging Watkins with us, much against his will; and we ate a meal, all relieved by the in the strain which had been imposed upon us and enjoying the comic with which Watkins permitted himself to be forced to sit at the table with Hugh.
 
"Dammit, Watty!" Hugh finally explained. "You're not a valet on this trip. You're a brother adventurer. I don't want any valeting. I'm taking you along for the benefit of your strong right arm."
 
"All very well, your ludship," mourned Watkins, "but if the Servants' 'All ever 'ears of it it's disgraced I'll be. I couldn't 'old up me 'ead again."
 
"I'll take care of that. And do you think we'd leave you to eat by yourself? Suppose that pretty lady of yours came in and sat down beside you. What would you do?"
 
"I'd 'eave 'er out the window, your ludship," said Watkins simply.
 
We loafed through dinner, and complete darkness had shut down when we returned to our compartment.
 
"I say," exclaimed Nikka, as he switched on the light. "Was your bag up there when we left, Hugh?"
 
Hugh studied the arrangement of the luggage on the racks.
 
"Can't say," he admitted finally. "But it ought to show if it's been pawed over."
 
He hauled it down, and opened it. Everything was in perfect order.
 
"Hold on, though," he cried, pursing his lips in a low whistle. "Watty, you packed this bag. Don't you usually put razors at the bottom?"
 
"Yes, your ludship."
 
"They're on top now. So are my brushes. Everything in order, but— What do you say to giving this train a look-over, ? If there are any familiar faces aboard we ought to be able to spot them. Nikka, you and Watty can mount guard here and protect each other until we come back."
 
Our car was about in the middle of the train, and at my suggestion, Hugh went forward, while I followed the corridor toward the rear. I examined carefully the few persons and talking in the corridors, and violated Rule One of European traveling by my head into every compartment door which was open. But I did not see any one who looked at all like any of the members of Toutou's gang whom I knew. In fact, the passengers were the usual lot one sees on a through-train.
 
I was returning and had reached the rear end of our car when I heard a scream just behind me and a door crashed open. I turned involuntarily. A woman in black, with a veil flying around her pale face, ran into the corridor, hesitated and then seized me by the arm.
 
"Oh, Monsieur! My husband! He is so ill," she cried in French. "He dies at this moment. I pray you, have you a ?"
 
The tears were streaming from her eyes; her face was convulsed with grief. I reached for my flask.
 
"Calm yourself, madame," I said. "Do you take this. I will ask the guard to help in finding a physician."
 
"Oh, no, no," she protested. "He has fallen. He is so heavy I cannot lift him. And he dies, monsieur! Oh, mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"
 
I slipped past her into the compartment, flask in hand. One of the electrics was on, and by its light I discerned the body of a man face down on the floor in the midst of a litter of baggage and wraps. I dropped the flask on one of the seats, and leaned over to the man up. As I did so she reëntered and closed the door, still brokenly in French.
 
"If you will help me, please, madame," I suggested. "He is very heavy, as you say."
 
"But gladly, monsieur. If you will turn him over—so that we may see if he breathes."
 
The man was breathing, , long, . I could see very little of him, only an unusual breadth of shoulder and a black beard. But I experienced an odd sensation of distaste as I touched him, and snatched my hands away. The woman began to .
 
"Oh, monsieur, he will choke! He will choke!"
 
I felt like a cur, and my hands beneath his chest. I started to lift him—and my wrists were caught in a human . So quickly that I could not follow his movements, the man on the floor had twisted me down beside him, his knee was on my chest, my wind was cut off, a pair of steel handcuffs me, and as I opened my mouth to scream a cotton gag was thrust into place by the woman who had me in.
 
"Voilà!" she said , knotting the cords of the gag around my neck. "Or if you'd rather have it in American, Mr. Nash, you're it. Here, Toutou, get off him. You won't help by crushing his chest in."
 
She gave my captor a shove, and he rose with a and a menacing gesture of clawed hands to take a seat by the door. I could see now that he was Toutou or Teodoreschi, cleverly disguised. The black beard his intensely face and fell to his waist. A soft cloth hat hid the fine contour of his . His immense chest was minimized by loose, ill-fitting clothes. And the evil green eyes, with animal , were behind dark spectacles.
 
"Get up," said the woman.
 
She stooped and put her hands under my arm-pits, exerting a strength amazing for her size. I staggered up and on the seat opposite Toutou and as far away from him as I could get. I was weak from the of his handling and the his touch had aroused. Inwardly, I cursed myself for a fool. I had been trapped at the very moment I was priding myself on being on the alert.
 
The woman sat down opposite me, tossed back the veil which had been hanging loosely around her face, picked up a vanity case and commenced to wipe a generous layer of powder from her cheeks.
 
She was of a Latin brunette type, with masses of black hair, great brown eyes and a beauty of face. As her profile was exposed to me my memory was jogged awake. She was Watkins's pretty lady! And I was reinforced in this conclusion when I recalled the muscle she had exhibited in me up, the off-hand expertness with which she had gagged me, performances reminiscent of the way the valet had been tripped and of his pistol.
 
After a muttered interchange of words with Toutou in a language I did not understand, she fastened her gaze on me, and evidently something of my thoughts was reflected in my face, for she burst out laughing.
 
"You can't make me out!" she in an unmistakable American accent. "You're not the first, Mr. Nash. How is old Watkins? He knows Hélène, too, and I'll bet he never wants to see me again. I laugh whenever I think of him lying there on the floor up into his own pistol. And say, you were lucky that day. I came near fetching a bomb with me, and if I had I sure would have piled it into that passage. Where would you have been then, eh?"
 
She impishly, and Toutou from the shadows at his end of the compartment—as I came to find out, the man had an animal's aversion for the light when his enemies were present— a sentence that was partly French, partly something else.
 
"Your affectionate friend tells me to quit kidding and get down to business," she interpreted with a smile. "I'm going to take that gag out, Mr. Nash, and Toutou is going to sit beside you with his hand on the back of your neck, and if you so much as start to yip he'll break it just as if you were a chicken." Her eyes glinted harshly. "Do you get me? That goes."
 
I nodded my head. Toutou moved up beside me, and a shiver my , as his hand unfastened the gag and enclosed my neck.
 
"We are safe," she continued. "You are my insane husband. We are Americans, and I am taking you to relatives in Italy. Toutou is the physician in charge of the case." She reached inside her bodice and produced some papers. "Here are your passport and a medical certificate. Everything is in order.
 
"The one question ............