Where is it?"

"Search me!" said Ruby.

"If he does," put in Toffee, "I'll scratch his eyes out."

Ruby turned on Toffee a searing gaze that knocked in her teeth, tore the gown from her back, and left her bent and bleeding in a dark alley. "I'm getting out of here," she announced, pushing back her chair. "You're both nuts."

It was Marc's guess that the flambuoyant Miss Marlow would probably be considered a flop in her own social set without a police record, and took a chance on it. "Just a minute," he said. "There are a few boys on the force that would like to know where you are, since you've dyed your hair, and if you don't level off right now, I'll have them on you like a swarm of flies."

Ruby settled back in her chair immediately. "Okay! okay!" she said. "You don't have to yell about it. I'll tell you the whole thing. After all, I was only hired to go downtown and yell like crazy, and pick up any loose brief cases I happened to see lying around. There's nothing illegal in that."

"Who hired you?"

Ruby glanced nervously around the room, and then suddenly smiled. "All right," she said pleasantly. "I'll tell you. You see that guy sitting over there? The rough looking bird in the opposite corner. That's Manny Groute, the racketeer. He hired me."

Marc glanced briefly over his shoulder and shuddered. Manny Groute was the sort of fellow no one would ever suspect of having had a mother. He seemed to have been assembled, rather than born. In front of him, the table looked like a delicate foot rest.

"What does he want with my brief case?" Marc asked uneasily.

"Search me," Ruby said easily. "The ransom I suppose."

"You ask him to search you just once more," Toffee broke in menacingly, "and I'll break your bottle of peroxide."

"That's enough!" bawled Ruby. "That's the shot that got me! Stand up, and I'll tear that red hair out by the roots! And don't think I can't do it, either. I've got Irish blood in my veins!"

"And if you'd like it splashed all over the floor, where you can show it off better," Toffee flared, "just start something!"

Ruby, an affable creature by nature, and always open to suggestions 

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