Without comment, the man in the cloth cap walked away. Fuller was amazed.
"You have changed your plan?"
"Our affairs do not wear the aspect they bore when I called upon the Culberson Agency for help," said the secret agent.
There was an unemployed taxi-cab by the curb a little distance away; they got into this and in a short time were put down at their hotel. The secret agent asked some question of the clerk, which the latter seemed to answer in the negative; then they ascended to Ashton-Kirk's apartments.
The secret agent threw himself into a comfortable chair and drew a tobacco pouch toward him. As he rolled a cigarette he said:
"We must lie idle until I get a call from Burgess."
"He is in Washington, then?"
"Yes; I had a few words with him over the wire while at Von Stunnenberg's. The secretary told him that I was there."
Through the open window the drone of the night could be heard. It was now perhaps two o'clock, and the city was deep in sleep. From somewhere in the distance a car could be heard passing now and then; occasionally the smooth hum of a motor, or the sharp "clup-clup" of a cab horse sounded nearer at hand. In silence the two young men sat smoking; half an hour went by and then the telephone rang, brusquely. Ashton-Kirk sprang to the receiver.