t any one being the wiser?"

"Was it supposed to be a description?" she asked, raising her brows a
bit.

"The best we could get from sixteen or eighteen people, most of whom
have known the man a long time; some of them for eight years."

"And no one--not one of all these people could differentiate him?"

"I've done my best at questioning them."

She gave me one straight, level look, and I wondered a little at the way
those velvety black eyes could saw into a fellow. But she put no query,
and I had the cheap satisfaction of knowing that she was convinced I'd
overlooked no details in the quiz that went to make up that
description. Then she turned to Worth.

"You said I might save you a lot of money. Has the man you're trying
here to describe anything to do with money--in large amounts--financial
affairs of importance?"

Again the little girl had unconsciously scored with me. To imagine a
rabbit like Clayte, alone, swinging such an enormous job was ridiculous.
From the first, my mind had been reaching after the others--the
big-brained criminals, the planners whose instrument he was. She
evidently saw this, but Worth answered her.

"He's quite a financier, Bobs. He walked off with nearly a million cash
to-day."

"From you?" with a quick breath.

"I'm the main loser if he gets away with it."

"Tell me about it."

And Worth gave her a concise account of the theft and his own share in
the affair. She listened eagerly now, those innocent great eyes growing
big with the interest of it. With her there was no blind stumbling over
Worth's motive in buying a suitcase sight unseen. I had guessed, but she
understood completely and unquestioningly. When he had finished, she
said solemnly,

"You know, don't you, that, if you've got your facts right--if these
things you've told me are square, even cubes of fact--they prove Clayte
among the wonderful men of the world?"

Worth's big brown paw went out and covered her little hand that lay on
the table's edge.

"Now we're getting somewhere," he encouraged her. As for me, I merely
snorted.

"Wonderful man, my eye! He's got a wonderful gang behind him."

"Oh, you should have told me that you know there is a gang, Mr. Boyne,"
she said simply. "Of course, then, the result is different."

"Well," I hedged, "there's a gang all right. But suppose there wasn't,
how would you find any wonderfulness in a creature as near nothing as
this Clayte?"

She sat and thought for a mom