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GRANTHAM WALDRON was chosen by the State Department for the task of guarding the life of Prince Guglielmo of Cassano for three reasons, namely:

   He spoke Italian like a native.

   He was unmarried.

   He feared no danger.

   The King of Italy and his immediate advisers had decided that the Prince should leave his own country and remain away until some of the hate in the breasts of his native Calabrians died down.

   From his ancient castle on the great rock above the town of Cassano del Ionio the Prince had quietly directed the fight of the Italian Crown against the Camorra.

   With the conviction of the prisoners at Viterbo, thousands of Calabrians and Sicilians turned their thoughts to Cassano, bit their thumbs until the blood flowed and swore to square accounts with the nobleman in the castle overlooking the Ionian Sea.

   The Prince, traveling as Signor Alessandro di Balta, a wealthy Italian merchant, reached New York safely and was installed in one of the most sumptuous hotels overlooking Central Park. He was accompanied by Donati, his secretary; Tocci, his valet, and Bozitelli, general servant for his suite. These three men were in reality the pick of the Italian secret police. They were to stand between the Prince and the agents of the Camorra who might endeavor to avenge the harm done the society.

   Waldron had served five years in the embasssy at Rome and, as duty called him, had drifted between the diplomatic corps and the powerful Secret Service arm of his country's machinery of government.

Meets the Prince.

   The American reported to the Prince as soon as he was comfortably in his suite and found him a man well in the forties a nobleman of the old regime, a mingling of a scholar, gentleman and warrior. His bearing was haughty, but his limpid brown eyes were kindly. A full beard, touched with gray, added to his distinguished appearance.

   The Prince found Waldron a young man with that touch of seriousness in face and bearing which gives hint of a fighting nature. His complexion was dark, his mouth and chin firm and his face clean shaven.

   The Prince and the young American studied each other carefully during the polite though perfunctory exchange of greetings.

   "Bozitelli, Signor Waldron," explained the Prince, "is the ranking agente segreto in my suite. He will be guided by your advice and commands. I am more than pleased to have you join us and am sure that your companionship will prove delightful to me even under such compelling circumstances."

   He nodded to Bozitelli, signifying that he might proceed to business with the American.

   "We are doing duty in eight-hour shifts, signor," explained Bozitelli. "One of us is always with his highness. Of course, whenever be goes in a crowd all of us go with him."

   "May I ask if you experienced any trouble in Italy before sailing," Waldron asked the agente segreto.

   Bozitelli remained silent for a moment.

   "Si," he replied.

   "Give Signor Waldron the details," said the Prince calmly.

Hears Some Details.

   "One of our number was slain," was Bozitteli's reply. "He was stabbed through the heart. The assassin escaped."

   "Did that happen in Calabria?"

   "No, Signor; in Rome."

   "Then you were followed?"

   "Undoubtedly, and there seems reason enough for us to be careful here in New York. You have more than 270,000 Italians in the city and many are from Calabria and Sicily."

   Waldron showed a trace of uneasiness at this frank discussion of assassination before the Prince, the man most in danger.

   "We have agreed, Signor Waldron," explained the Prince, as if reading what was in the American's mind, "that I shall be fully informed at all times. That is why Bozitelli speaks so frankly."

   The Prince turned to Donati, as the latter entered the room.

   "You had better make out the report for the home office, Donati," he advised, "and write what letters you wish to send by the next ship. We will summon you from the hotel writing room if we need you.

   "The Camorra has not been destroyed by the Viterbo convictions," the Prince said, turning to Waldron again. "The Camorra is an organization that is ancient and strong. It will last as long as ignorance and lust for money obtain. There is a branch of it in New York, of course, and in every city where Italians have taken up their homes.

   "Unfortunately, the Camorra has developed so that it includes noblemen who have degenerated, statesmen who have been found faithless and even members of the clergy. If I am not mistaken the man who killed our agent in Rome was not of the peasant type."

The Prince's theory.

   "May I ask the reason for this belief?" Waldron questioned.

   "The agent was slain during a reception given me in Rome."

   "Did any of the guests witness the murder?"

   The Prince smiled grimly and stroked his beard.

   "Yes and no," he replied. "The poor fellow was seen to topple to the floor, dead. He uttered no cry. We could find no one who saw the blow delivered."

   "But Bozitelli said that he was stabbed?"

   "And so he was," replied the Prince to the implied query, "but the blade was so small that it could have served as a bodkin and the blow was dealt with great cunning, the weapon being hidden. The tiny stiletto pierced the heart in the center. No one tried to escape from the palace of my host."

   "Were the people in the salon detained and searched for a weapon?"

   "Every door of the palace was immediately closed and the secret Police searched every man and woman within, regardless of rank or station. No weapon was found."

   The conversation was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

   Bozitelli went to the instrument and gave an answering "hello."

   The Italian listened intently for a few moments and then said:

   "I shall be down immediately. "Eminenza," he explained as he turned to the Prince. "I am informed that Donati has fallen in a faint in the writing room. It is strange. He was in excellent health."

   Bozitelli took his hat from a rack near the door and started from the room. He paused on the threshold and turned.

   "Tocci," he instructed his countryman, "you remain with the Prince until my return. Signor Waldron, I think it would be better if you accompany me."

   Waldron was off with the Italian without further words.

A Mysterious Death.

   They hurried downstairs in the first elevator and sought the writing room. They found a little group of hotel attendants clustered about the body of Donati, which lay upon a rug beside an overturned chair.

   Bozitelli knelt and tore open the coat and waistcoat. There waa a tiny red spot showing on the white shirt just over the heart.

   "Donati is dead, Signor Waldron," said Bozitelli solemnly, but without a quaver of fear in his voice.

   With the usual care that is taken by the managements of all of New York's great hotels when anything untoward happens, the fact that Donati had been murdered in the writing room was suppressed. Waldron showed his badge to the manager of the house and took charge of the matter. The first report that Donati had only fainted was allowed to stand after the body had been removed to a bedroom.

   The Prince made no inquiry about Donati. No information being volunteered him, he seemed to accept in that the worst had happened.

   "Tocci has ordered a machine for us," he said quietly. "I would like a glimpse of the city. Tocci shall remain here. Are you ready, signori?"

   The machine was waiting on the street below. The Prince, Bozitelli and Waldron left the hotel. It was the Fall of the year, the time when New York has its greatest charm for visitors. The September rains had washed the atmosphere until it was as fresh and sweet and wholesome as the air of the fields in the country. There was even the scent of loam and verdure coming from the park.

   The chauffeur took them through the winding roads of New York's great breathing place to Cathedral Parkway, then west to Broadway and down Broadway through the gay heart of the city. The return to the hotel was made through Fifth avenue. The Prince, in silence, studied the architectural enormities of the tight little island of Manhattan or gazed curiously at the crowds packing the sidewalks.

   Save for a, question now and then from the Prince there was little conversation. The return to the hotel was made at the time of dusk. The Prince stopped at the clerk's desk to read telegrams and cables held for him. Waldron remaining at his elbow. Bozitelli went ahead to the suite.

   The Italian tapped on the door of the entrance hall of the Prince's apartments. There was no answer. He drew his keys from his pocket and they made a jingling noise as he fitted one to the lock. It may have been that his hand trembled slightly. He opened the door and entered the reception room of the suite.

Still Another Murder.

   Tocci lay upon a divan near the windows overlooking the park. A tiny of spiral of smoke curled lazily upward from a half cigarette on the floor beneath the hanging over the side of the couch.

   Bozitelli crossed the room in a bound. There was a telltale spot of blood on Tocci's linen just over the heart. Bozitelli picked up the body and carried it to his bedroom.

   The Prince and Waldron entered.

   The dinner hour was approaching and the nobleman went to his dressing room and bathed his face and hands. He did not change his attire. "Signor Waldron," he suggested as he returned to the reception room, "what do you say to dining informally? I should like to get in closer touch with your people."

   Before Waldron could reply, Bozitelli, standing in the door, interrupted with a hasty suggestion.

   "Eminenza," he urged rather nervously, "there is a most delightful restaurant here in the hotel and I am told that the music is the best in the city. The great Caruso himself frequently has supper here after the opera, and he has been known to sing here for his personal friends."

   The Prince looked at the Italian secret agent curiously. Then he took a turn of the room, alternately stroking his beard and flicking the ashes from a cigarette.

   "Where is Donati?" he asked abruptly.

   "Eminenza," replied Bozitelli. "Donati is dead."

   "Ah."

   The Prince paused in his pacing of the room and stared at the lighted end of his cigarette reflectively.

   "When did this happen?" he asked easily.

   "When I received the telephone message from downstairs."

   "Poor Donati! He was a brave fellow."

   "It might be well, Your Highness," suggested Waldron, "that we follow Bozitelli's advice and dine in the hotel."

The Prince Proposes.

   "There are only three, Eminenza."

   The nobleman turned to Bozitelli, raising his eyebrows in silent inquiry.

   Waldron was startled.

   "Tocci is dead," said Bozitelli.

   The Prince lit a fresh cigarette and from a Chippendale side table took a decanter of wine and three glasses.

   "There is little room for formality under the circumstances," he said as he motioned Waldron and Bozitelli to draw their chairs to the center table.

   He poured the glasses full with a rare vintage and offered his jeweled cigarette case as if his guards were of equal rank with himself.

   "Bozitteli," he said, after sipping his wine. "this is, I believe, the night of the feast of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo."

   "It is, Eminenza," replied Bozitelli. "Tocci was from Palermo."

   "If am not mistaken," the Prince went on, half musingly, "the Italian quarter here will be illuminated for the festa. There will be altars raised in the streets, parades, much music and Chianti drinking, the emptying of many Marsala and Barbera bottles and great jollity."

   Bozitelli looked his uneasiness.

   "It is the feast day of the patron saint of poor Tocci's home city, Eminenza," he warned.

   "Signori," said the Prince almost suavely, fingering the stem of his wine glass, "suppose we join the celebration of the festa and have a dish of macaroni with the people?"

   Waldron's dark face seemed a shade darker as he put down his glass and exhaled a great cloud of cigarette smoke. He realized that the nobleman, himself a brave man, was testing the courage of his two remaining guards.

   "I would enjoy a dish of macaroni a great deal," said the American slowly, "and I shall attend the festa this evening. Unfortunately your highness will not have the opportunity of joining me. The murder of Tocci has not been reported, and you and Bozitelli must remain here to talk with the officers of police whom I shall send to you."

   "You are going into the Italian quarter tonight alone?" asked the Prince.

   "Si, Signor."

   "Why?"

   "I am not going to wait until the murderer of Donati and Tocci finishes Bozitelli and then tries to finish me," declared the American. "I am going to try and find him, rout him out of his hole and send him to the electric chair."

Waldron Makes a Discovery.

   A large military band in the stand of Mulberry Bend Park was playing the music of Rossini, Mascagni, Puccini and the other loved composers of the Italians. The front of the shabby tenements echoed the music and also the voices of men and women as they sang their favorite arias.

   Roughly dressed and wearing the heavy brogans of a laborer, Grantham Waldron idled in the throng. He loafed in and out of the drinking places, sipped of the lighter wines occasionally and listened to the gossip.

   He passed the office of Il Progresso, paused and glanced at the evening bulletins and made his way, to the narrow gore strip of asphalt which marks the place where the once notorious Five Points stood. He crossed into Baxter street where Sicily and Judah meet in the crowded lower East Side. A few doors from the bend he found the tavern of Angelo Mugnajo. The entrance was three steps below the sidewalk, as if the old building, once a fine residence, had sunken on its foundations. The windows on either side of the door were piled with bottles and barrels.

   Waldron entered and bought a small bottle of Chianti. He had bought a quantity of spiced crackers at a street stall and in a corner he sat munching, sipping and listening. He was at the very door of New York's Camorra. As he nibbled at his tortelletta di cacio he heard the swilling bravvazoni addressing each other as "Si," or "Sir," the form of salutation used by the Camorristi of the old country. Out of the babel he gleaned the gossip that a Master Camorrist had come across the ocean recently. His coming was a big event in the Italian underworld, and there was little else the bravvazoni could talk of.

   Gradually the sounds from without died down. Midnight had come and the muisicians were packing their instruments when through the sunken door of the tavern of Angelo Mugnajo, with the wave of a gloved hand, there entered a tall and slender man, with the carriage of a personage. Wrapped tightly about him was a cloak of light, black material with a collar so high that try as he might, Waldron could not get a glimpse of his features. A felt hat, with the brim jauntily drawn down on the right side, completely obscured the man's profile.

   A group of half-drunken braggarts at the bar suddenly dropped their voices and the clamor of tongues subsided to a buzzing sound.

   Mugnajo, fat, gray and wheezy, became all obsequiousness.

   "Masto, volite niente?" he asked in a whine.

   It was the ritualistic greeting of a Camorrist to the master of the Camorristi: "Master, do you want anything?"

   Three or four prosperous-appearing Italians had followed the master into the cafe. They crowded closely about him as he ordered a bottle of Mugnajo's best Barbera. The glasses were filled, held silently before the members of the group for a moment and then emptied. In a few quick steps the group at the bar moved to the Baxter street entrance and the Sir Master was escorted to a waiting automobile.

   Waldron followed, trying as hard as he could without creating suspicion, to get a glimpse of the man's face. He was unsuccessful. His next effort was to get the number of the waiting machine. With this he would be able to trace the owner and the chauffeur and finally the head of the Camorra.

   The Secret Service man stepped to the curb, but as he did so two of the men accompanying the Sir Master left the sidewalk and stood so that they masked She license number and the little tail light shining upon it.

   With a blast of the horn the machine was off with a plunge of a great beast springing for its prey and Waldron was left in the Baxter street gutter with that sickening feeling which comes after a coveted prize has been seized only to slip through the fingers.

   After a few hours' sleep in his bedroom in the suite of the Prince, Waldron went carefully over the events that had filled with quick horror the few hours of the visit of his royal charge to New York.

   The bodies of Tocci and Donati had been taken from the hotel during the night and lay in the morgue. At the solicitation of the police and the Secret Service the coroner had held up his report and inquests were put off indefinitely.

Reviews the Situation.

   Waldron remembered Bozitelli's account of the death of the first agente segreto during the reception to the Prince in Rome. He decided that the tall, slender man with the aristocratic bearing he had seen in the Mulberry Bend colony was the one of all the Camorristi in New York that he would have to guard against. Such an assassin might safely move in the conventional evening dress in the throng during the entr'acte at the opera when the patrons of the Golden Horse Shoe visited from box to box. Among the wealthy and handsomely dressed guests of the big hotels he could move about in lobbies, lounging rooms and cafes. That the object of the Camorra avenger was to eliminate the guard about the Prince and then finish his work with the taking of royal blood seemed very plausible to the American. Either he or Bozitelli would be the next to go, he told himself.

   To better comprehend every detail of what had happened and study future prospects Waldron had his breakfast alone in the hotel restaurant. He finished his cigarette and his second cup of coffee and determined to go over the matter with Bozitelli. He returned to the suite of the Prince.

   "Ah, good morning, Signor Waldron," exclaimed the Prince with an ill-concealed sigh of relief.

   "oh, I am still alive," laughed Waldron, reading what was in the mind of the Italian nobleman.

   "And you participated in the feast of Santa Rosalia last night?" asked the Prince.

   "Yes; I thought I would give Bozitelli the results of my trip to Mulberry Bend."

   "Include me, pray."

   "If you so wish it."

   The three drew chairs to a sunny window overlooking the Plaza and the billowing sea of foliage stretching northward through Central Park and gazed down upon the bright little patch of city life until the soft, even voice of the American broke the mutual reverie.

   "In a cafe kept by one Mugnajo — in Baxter street, just off Mulberry Bend," Waldron began, "I came upon a number of men who had just left a Camorra meeting, I believe. One of them was a Sir Master."

   "You recognized him as such, then?" asked the Prince.

   "He was greeted formally as a Sir Master by Mugnajo."

   "Masto, volite niente." repeated Bozitelli.

   "That was the greeting," replied Waldron.

The Sir Master.

   "Describe him to us," said Bozitelli. "It is fortunate that you have seen him. It is seldom that a Sir Master crosses the ocean. He is probably the murderer of Tocci and Donati."

   "He kept his face concealed," replied the American. "His associates managed even to hide the number of the automobile he used."

   "Ah!" exclaimed the prince, "we can be sure that he is the Camorrist sent to kill me for my share in the Calabrian trials and convictions."

   "He was tall, slender, well-dressed and bore himself as a gentleman," Waldron told the prince and his remaining Italian guard. "It was easy to single him out of a crowd of peasants, but it would be hard to spot him in an assembly of well-dressed people, none of us knowing his features."

   "He is probably in this very hotel," suggested Bozitelli.

   "He may have the adjoining suite for that matter," the prince added.

   "My suggestion is that we take stock of every man stopping in the hotel," Waldron offered. "By elimination we will put aside all the short men and all the tail and robust men guests. Then we will look up the records of every slender guest of six feet and over, find out where they have their rooms, whence they came and when they arrived. We will then be able to eliminate the native-born and those who can be fully accounted for. It may be tedious and unexciting work, but that is the way we go about such things in the United States Secret Service."

   "It is a splendid and sensible plan, Signor Waldron," exclaimed the prince.

   "On your promise not to leave the suite and not to remove your revolver from our right-hand coat pocket, I shall take Bozitelli with me and begin this work right now, Eminenza," said Waldron. "I give you my promise," replied the Prince grimly, but with a smile. "I shall be prepared. I do not like the idea of the taking of human life, especially my life."

   It was shortly after 10 o'clock and the lobby of the hotel was rapidly filling with those who had breakfasted late. Waldron and Bozitelli loitered through the corridors of the main floor, looking over the men with whom they touched elbow's.

The Man Sought.

   They were standing at the entrance of a suite of three writing and lounging rooms, two large rooms with a small room between them, when Waldron's eye caught the figure of the man he sought. He stood still, watching this guest's movements and studying his face.

   At a table near the door leading from the first of the larger writing rooms to the little center room sat a slender man at a desk, writing busily. Bozitelli entered the room to look him over and pass through to the third room and then to the corridor beyond.

   Waldron's nerves were taut with the excitement of a dog unleashed in the proximity of a hidden quarry. His eyes were sharp for a hint or suggestion that might give him the means of opening a trail to the man he was after, and his ears keen for the faintest syllable of a word that might carry the betrayal of an Italian voice.

   The sound of a heavy object failing upon soft carpet made him wheel about. He saw Bozitelli prone upon the floor of the little inner writing room. Near the door sat a tall and slender man leaning over a desk, busily writing with a gold-tipped fountain pen.

   Waldron sprang into the room, his hand on the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. A guest in the inner room had hurried to the fallen man.

   "Call assistance," he heard the guest saying. "This gentleman has fainted."

   The American leaned over the shoulder of the man at the desk and pressed a pearl button.

   "I bet your pardon," protested the letter writer, "but there are other buttons to press and I am engaged in private correspondence."

   There was a touch of foreign accent and affected querulousness to the voice.

   "A man has been murdered at your elbow," replied Waldron.

   "Murdered! Impossible!" cried the guest hastily putting the top upon his pen.

   An attendant in uniform entered the room.

   "Call the policeman at the door and have the clerk summon the house physician," the American ordered sharply. He pointed to the stricken Bozitelli. "Be quick about it."

Trapped.

   The man at the desk had risen and was facing Waldron. The Secret Service agent looked into an aquiline countenance, patrician, but seamed with dissipation and touched with viciousness.

   "I must detain you — as a witness perhaps," Waldron told him.

   "You may have my card," was the reply. "I was busily engaged at this desk, as you know, and saw nothing that happened. But I shall be glad to answer any questions."

   He started to pass Waldron.

   "Stand where you are," came the sharp command.

   "Pah! Who are you? If you are an officer you may send to my suite for me at any time."

   A uniformed policeman, followed by a house detective, rushed into the room.

   Waldron showed them his little gold badge of the United States secret service.

   "Take this man into custody," he ordered. "Search him."

   The light fingers of the house detective ran through the handsomely made walking suit of the hotel guest, as bitter protests were stammered.

   "He had no weapon of any sort," Waldron heard the detective report.

   Waldron was gazing long and hard at the finished letter on the desk. A shaded electric lamp brought out every word and line of it. The last ten words upon the page were still wet and the ink was of a different tone of color from that with which the major part of the letter was written. All the words save these ten were in blue and the ten at the end were of rusty purple.

   "Hold fast to that man," he instructed the house detective as he stepped into the smaller room and leaned over the body of Bozitelli. For a moment he studied a little incarmined hole in the white linen shirt of the Italian secret agent. At the lower side was the blood stain and at the other was a spot of fresh ink.

   The American turned to the house detective and his prisoner. With a quick movement he frisked the prisoner of his fountain pen. The foreigner made a desperate effort to break away, but was rewarded with a pair of steel bracelets slipped on his wrists by an adept in police craft.

   Waldron fingered the body of the pen slowly and carefully until suddenly there shot from it a long, needlelike tongue of the finest Damascene steel.

   "Si, Masto," said the secret service man to the prisoner. "you will get what is coming to you quicker here than your compatriots did at Viterbo. The blood of Bozitelli is written into the last ten words of this letter here and your ink is upon his shirt and in his death wound. The chemical expert at Police Headquarters will make the analysis before blood or ink is dry."

[The End]