Old Richardson who founded our agency (and would never
knowingly have 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.

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,

"Worth," I said a bit nervously--after all, I nearly had to know--"is
your father going to come through?"

"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 settled themselves in a great flu