intelligence, Mr. Blakeley, but you lack
the professional eye, the analytical mind. You legal gentlemen call a
spade a spade, although it may be a shovel."

"'A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And nothing more!'"

I quoted as the train pulled out.

CHAPTER XXIII. A NIGHT AT THE LAURELS

I slept most of the way to Cresson, to the disgust of the little
detective. Finally he struck up an acquaintance with a kindly-faced old
priest on his way home to his convent school, armed with a roll of dance
music and surreptitious bundles that looked like boxes of candy.
From scraps of conversation I gleaned that there had been mysterious
occurrences at the convent,--ending in the theft of what the reverend
father called vaguely, "a quantity of undermuslins." I dropped asleep at
that point, and when I roused a few moments later, the conversation had
progressed. Hotchkiss had a diagram on an envelope.

"With this window bolted, and that one inaccessible, and if, as you say,
the--er--garments were in a tub here at X, then, as you hold the key
to the other door,--I think you said the convent dog did not raise any
disturbance? Pardon a personal question, but do you ever walk in your
sleep?"

The priest looked bewildered.

"I'll tell you what to do," Hotchkiss said cheerfully, leaning
forward, "look around a little yourself before you call in the police.
Somnambulism is a queer thing. It's a question whether we are most
ourselves sleeping or waking. Ever think of that? Live a saintly life
all day, prayers and matins and all that, and the subconscious mind
hikes you out of bed at night to steal undermuslins! Subliminal theft,
so to speak. Better examine the roof."

I dozed again. When I wakened Hotchkiss sat alone, and the priest, from
a corner, was staring at him dazedly, over his breviary.

It was raining when we reached Cresson, a wind-driven rain that had
forced the agent at the newsstand to close himself in, and that beat
back from the rails in parallel lines of white spray. As he went up the
main street, Hotchkiss was cheerfully oblivious of the weather, of
the threatening dusk, of our generally draggled condition. My draggled
condition, I should say, for he improved every moment,--his eyes
brighter, his ruddy face ruddier, his collar newer and glossier.
Sometime, when it does not encircle the little man's neck, I shall test
that collar with a match.

I was growing steadil