uldn't be likely to have eloped with the minister, or advertised for
a husband, or anything like that?"

"You would have to know her to understand," I said resignedly. "But she
didn't do any of those things, and she didn't run off to join a
theatrical troupe. Burton, who do you think was in the Fleming house
last night?"

"Lightfoot," he said succinctly.

He stopped under a street lamp and looked at his watch.

"I believe I'll run over to the capital to-night," he said. "While I'm
gone--I'll be back to-morrow night or the next morning--I wish you would
do two things. Find Rosie O'Grady, or whatever her name is, and locate
Carter. That's probably not his name, but it will answer for a while.
Then get your friend Hunter to keep him in sight for a while, until I
come back anyhow. I'm beginning to enjoy this; it's more fun than a
picture puzzle. We're going to make the police department look like a
kindergarten playing jackstraws."

"And the second thing I am to do?"

"Go to Bellwood and find out a few things. It's all well enough to say
the old lady was a meek and timid person, but if you want to know her
peculiarities, go to her neighbors. When people leave the beaten path,
the neighbors always know it before the families."

He stopped before a drug-store.

"I'll have to pack for my little jaunt," he said, and purchased a
tooth-brush, which proved to be the extent of his preparations. We
separated at the station, Burton to take his red hair and his
tooth-brush to Plattsburg, I to take a taxicab, and armed with a page
torn from the classified directory to inquire at as many of the twelve
Anderson's drug-stores as might be necessary to locate Delia's gentleman
friend, "the clerk," through him Delia, and through Delia, the
mysterious Carter, "who was not really a butler."

It occurred to me somewhat tardily, that I knew nothing of Delia but her
given name. A telephone talk with Margery was of little assistance:
Delia had been a new maid, and if she had heard her other name, she had
forgotten it.

I had checked off eight of the Andersons on my list, without result, and
the taximeter showed something over nineteen dollars, when the driver
drew up at the curb.

"Gentleman in the other cab is hailing you, sir," he said over his
shoulder.

"The other cab?"

"The one that has been following us."

I opened the door and glanced behind. A duplicate of my cab stood
perhaps fifty feet behind, and from it a familiar f