many traps. There
is the huge fireplace in the library, and my room is above. I have
heard a tapping, like some one hammering gently on stone. I have
examined the bricks and so has my father, but neither of us has
discovered anything. Three days ago I placed flour thinly on the
flagstone before the fireplace. There were footprints in the
morning--of rubber shoes. When I called in my father, the maid had
unfortunately cleaned the stone without observing anything. So my
father still holds that I am subject to dreams. His secretary, whom he
had for three years, has left him. The butler's and servants' quarters
are in the rear of the other wing. They have never been disturbed."

"I am not a detective, Miss Killigrew," he remarked, as she paused.

"No, but you seem to be a man of invention and of good spirit. Will
you help me?"

"In whatever way I can." His opinion at that moment perhaps agreed
with that of her father. Still, a test could be of no harm. She was a
charming young woman, and he was assured that beneath this present
concern there was a lively, humorous disposition. He had a month for
idleness, and why not play detective for a change? Then he recalled
the trespasser in the park. By George, she might be right!

"Come, then, and I will present you to my father. His deafness is not
so bad that one has to speak loudly. To speak distinctly will be
simplest."

She thereupon conducted him into the library. His quick glance, thrown
here and there absorbingly, convinced him that there were at least five
thousand volumes in the cases, a magnificent private collection,
considering that the owner was not a lawyer, and that these books were
not dry and musty precedents from the courts of appeals and supreme.
He was glad to see that some of his old friends were here, too, and
that the shelves were not wholly given over to piracy. What a hobby to
follow! What adventures all within thirty square feet! And a shiver
passed over his spine as he saw several tattered black flags hanging
from the walls; the real articles, too, now faded to a rusty brown.
Over what smart and lively heeled brigs had they floated, these
sinister jolly rogers? For in a room like this they could not be other
than genuine. All his journalistic craving for stories awakened.

Behind a broad, flat, mahogany desk, with a green-shaded student lamp
at his elbow, sat a bright-cheeked, white-haired man, writing.
Fitzgerald instantly