“Let me help,” said Orme, eager to follow those papers all over Chicago, if only it would serve her. “Hear my story first.” Rapidly he recounted the adventures of the evening. She listened, eyes intent, nodding in recognition of his description of Poritol and Alcatrante. When he came to the account of the fight in the porter’s office and spoke of the Japanese with the scar on his forehead, she interrupted.
“Oh! That was Maku,” she exclaimed.
“Maku?”
“Our butler. He must have overheard my father and me.”
“Then he knew the value of the papers.”
“He must have. I am sorry, Mr. Orme, that you have been so roughly used.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “They didn’t hurt me in the least. And now, what is your story? How did you get on the trail of the bill?”
“We came back from the East a few days ago,” she began. “My father had to undergo a slight operation, and he wished to have it performed by his friend, Dr. Allison, who lives here, so we went to our home in—one of the northern suburbs.
“Father could not go back East as soon as he had expected to, and he had the papers sent to him, by special arrangement with the—with the other parties to the contract. Mr. Poritol followed us from the East. I—we had known him there. He was always amusing company; we never took him seriously. He had business here, he said; but on the first day of his arrival he came out to call on us. The next night our house was entered by a burglar. Besides the papers, only a few things were taken.”
“Poritol?” exclaimed Orme, incredulously.