left me at the head of it, though he did take me in as partner, finally) used to say that the main trouble with me was I studied people instead of cases. Richardson held that all men are equal before the detective, and must be regarded only as queer shaped pieces to be fitted together so as to make out a case. Richardson would have gone as coolly about easing the salt of the earth into the chink labeled "murder" or "embezzlement," as though neither had been human. With me the personal equation always looms big, and of course he was quite right in saying that it's likely to get you all gummed up.

[Pg 30]

The telephone on the table before me rang. It was Roberts, my secretary, with the word that Foster had lifted the watch from Ocean View, the little town at the neck of the peninsula, where bay and ocean narrow the passageway to one thoroughfare, over which every machine must pass that goes by land from San Francisco. With two operatives, he had been on guard there since three o'clock of the afternoon, holding up blond men in cars, asking questions, taking notes and numbers. Now he reported it was a useless waste of time.

"Order him in," I instructed Roberts.

A far-too-fat entertainer out on the floor was writhing in the pangs of an Hawaiian dance. It took the attention of the crowd. I watched the face of my companion for a moment, then,

[Pg 31]"Worth," I said a bit nervously—after all, I nearly had to know—"is your father going to come through?"

[Pg 31]

"Eh?" He looked at me startled, then put it aside negligently. "Oh, the money? No. I'll leave that up to Cummings." A brief pause. "We'll get a wiggle on us and dig up the suitcase." He lifted his tumbler, stared at it, then unseeingly out across the room, and his lip twitched in a half smile. "I'm sure glad I bought it."

Looking at him, I had no reason to doubt his word. His enjoyment of the situation seemed to grow with every detail I brought up.

It was near eleven when the party came in to take the long, flower-trimmed table. Worth's back was to the room; I saw them over his shoulder, in the lead a tall blonde, very smartly dressed, but not in evening clothes; in severe, exclusive street wear. The man with her, good looking, almost her own type, had that possessive air which seems somehow unmistakable—and there was a look about the half dozen companions after them, as they 

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