"Talk about results!" Billie was first to speak. "Why--where do you
suppose I found myself? Out in mid-ocean, in a small boat, with the
spray flying into my--that is, into the face of--" She broke off,
confused.

"Your agent?" the doctor put in. All Billie could do was to nod; Van
Emmon was bursting to talk.

"My agent was a Parisian apache, or I'm a bum guesser! I didn't
catch all that was going on, but it certainly sounded like the plans
and specifications of a garroting!"

"No such excitement here," said Smith. But his eyes were sparkling.
"I was going the rounds with a mail-carrier. How do you explain
that, doc? I've never given mail-carrying a second thought."

"That would have nothing to do with it. As for myself, I was looking
through the eyes of some member of the House of Representatives, in
Washington. I recognized the building. They were calling the roll at
the time."

He paused while he made a note of the incident, for the sake of
checking up the hour with the newspaper accounts later on. Then he
rubbed the knuckles of one hand in the palm of the other--a habit
which indicated that a diagnosis was going on in his mind. The