its to be added, but they're the gang that
planned and helped--and used zero Clayte as their tool. You're talking
of those digits, not Clayte."

"I believe Bobs'll find them for you, Jerry--if you'll let her," said
Worth.

"Oh, I'll let anybody do anything"--a bit nettled. "I'm ready to have
our friend Clayte take his place, with the pyramids and the hanging
gardens of Babylon, among the earth's wonders; but you've got to show
me."

"All right." Worth gave the girl a look that brought something of that
wonderful rose flush fluttering back into her cheeks. "I'm betting on
her. Go to it, Bobsie--let him in on your mathematical logic."

"You used the word 'coincidence,' Mr. Boyne." She leaned across toward
me, eyes bright, little finger tip marking her points. "Allow one
coincidence--that the only description, the only photograph missing from
your files are those of the self-effacing Clayte. To-day Clayte has
proved to be a thief--"

"In seven figures," Worth threw in, and she smiled at him.

"You would call that another coincidence, Mr. Boyne?"

I nodded, rather unable at the moment to think of a better word to use.

"Two coincidences," she went on,--"we are still in mathematics--you
can't add. They run by geometrical progression into the impossible."

The phone rang. While I turned to answer it, my mind was still hunting a
comeback to this. The call was from Foster, just in from Ocean View and
reporting for instructions. Covering the transmitter with my hand, I
told Worth the situation and asked,

"Any suggestions?"

"Not I," he shook his head. I added, a bit sarcastically,

"Or you, Miss Wallace?"

"Yes," she surprised me. "Have your man Foster find three women who have
seen Edward Clayte; get from them the color of his hair and eyes; tell
him to have them be exact about it."

"Fine! But you know they'll not agree, any more than the other people
agreed."

"Oh, yes they will," she laughed at me a little. "Don't you notice that
a girl always says a blue-eyed man or a brown-eyed man? That's what she
sees when she first meets him, and it sticks in her mind. Girls and
women sort out people by types; small differences in color mean
something to them."

I didn't keep Foster waiting any longer.

"Hello," I spoke quickly into the transmitter. "Get busy and dig out any
women clerks of the bank, stenographers, scrub-women there, or whatever,
and ask them particularly as to the exact shade of Clayte's hair and