"Mean to say you don't remember—?"
"Between the moment when I was struck and thrown by a motor-car that night of November, and the moment when, on the morning of the fifth of June, I bumped my head badly, falling from a companion-ladder on the Port Royal, I remember nothing. For all I know of my life between these dates, I am indebted to a lady who may or may not be a sacred vessel of the unbiased truth—Mademoiselle Delorme."
"Liane Delorme!" cried Crane—"where in time did you meet up with that war-horse?"
"On board the Port Royal."
"Funny! that dame sailed for France last February—by request—and specially requested not to come back, too."
"You are sure?"
"Made it my business to see her off. The Lone Wolf had just begun to be a regular pest, about that time, and I thought maybe little Liane knew more than she was willing to let on. So we got the Government to put on the screws; it amounted to her being deported, though she was given to understand the Government's memory might go bad if her's got good. But she left swearing in seven languages, none of 'em ladylike, she didn't know the first thing about you and was a cruelly misjudged woman and all like that."
"Yet she must have returned, to have sailed on the Port Royal with me."
"Oh! there are a hundred different ways, all good, for an undesirable alien to sneak into this country—by rail from Canada or Mexico, or through any port but New York—running next to no risk of being spotted and held up except by accident."
"You interest me more every minute. Pray bear in mind I have seen no newspapers, while you, I daresay, have read more than one report of my disappearance from the Port Royal . . . No doubt, then, you can tell me who claimed the honour of having recovered the necklace."