k.

"Read it," he said lazily. "Shields has got a wife; and her name ain't
Delia."

"Dear Tom," Davidson read, in a mincing falsetto, "We are closing up
unexpected, so I won't be here to-night. I am going to Mamie Brennan's
and if you want to talk to me you can get me by calling up Anderson's
drug-store. The clerk is a gentleman friend of mine. Mr. Carter, the
butler, told me before he left he would get me a place as parlor maid,
so I'll have another situation soon. Delia."

The sergeant scowled. "I'm goin' to talk to Tom," he said, reaching out
for the note. "He's got a nice family, and things like that're bad for
the force."

I lighted the cigar, which had been my excuse for loitering on the
pavement, and went on. It sounded involved for a novice, but if I could
find Anderson's drug-store I could find Mamie Brennan; through Mamie
Brennan I would get Delia; and through Delia I might find Carter. I was
vague from that point, but what Miss Fleming had said of Carter had made
me suspicious of him. Under an arc light I made the first note in my
new business of man-hunter and it was something like this:

Anderson's drug-store.

Ask for Mamie Brennan.

Find Delia.

Advise Delia that a policeman with a family is a bad bet.

Locate Carter.

It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut and Union Streets,
where Fred had said Allan Fleming had come to grief in a cab. But the
corner-man had gone, and the night man on the beat knew nothing, of
course, of any particular collision.

"There's plinty of 'em every day at this corner," he said cheerfully.
"The department sinds a wagon here every night to gather up the pieces,
autymobiles mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced off
clean three times in the last month. They say a fellow ain't a graduate
of the autymobile school till he can go around it on the sidewalk
without hittin' it!"

I left him looking reminiscently at the pole, and went home to bed. I
had made no headway, I had lost conceit with myself and a day and
evening at the office, and I had gained the certainty that Margery
Fleming was safe in Bellwood and the uncertain address of a servant who
_might_ know something about Mr. Fleming.

I was still awake at one o'clock and I got up impatiently and consulted
the telephone directory. There were twelve Andersons in the city who
conducted drug-stores.

When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed that I was driving Margery
Fleming along a street