"Now that we've got her," inquired Madelaine James, "what'll we do with her?"
"Take off the handcuffs, leave the room, and close the door," directed Taylor. "She'll hardly care to make any fuss when she comes to, and the fact that she is unconscious gives us an excellent opportunity for departing without a scene."
"But what I'd like to know," he asked, as they strolled back toward the main ballroom, "is how you engineered the affair?"
"I told you I had an intuition," came the reply, "and you laughed at me. Yes you did, too! It wasn't apparent on your face, but I could feel that inside yourself you were saying, 'Just another fool idea.' But Mrs. Armitage was preying on my mind. I didn't like the way she had slipped one over on us in connection with the leak on the peace note. Then, too, she seemed to have no visible means of support, but plenty of money.
"I felt certain that she wasn't guilty of blackmail or any of the more sordid kinds of crime, but the fact that she was on terms of familiarity with a number of diplomats, and that she seemed to have a fondness for army and navy officials, led me to believe that she was a sort of super spy, sent over here for a specific purpose. The instant you mentioned the Carruthers Code she sprang to my mind. A bill, slipped into the fingers of her maid, brought the information about the green cloak, and the rest was easy.
"I figured that she'd have the cipher key on her to-night, for it was her first opportunity of passing it along to the man I felt certain she was working for. Sure enough, as she passed him about half an hour ago she tapped her bracelet, apparently absent-mindedly. As soon as he was out of sight I sent one of the maids with a message that some one wanted to see her in one of the smaller rooms. Thinking that it was the ambassador, she came at once. I was planted behind the door, handcuffed her before she knew what I was doing, and then signaled you!
"Quite elementary, my dear Melville, quite elementary!"
"That," added Quinn, "was the last they heard of Mrs. Armitage. Taylor reported the matter at once, but the chief said that as they had the code they better let well enough alone. The following day the woman left Washington, and no one has heard from her since—except for a package that reached Taylor some months later. There was nothing in it except that photograph yonder, and, as Taylor was interested only in his bride, née Madelaine James, he turned it over to me for my collection."