wn men there--and left
headquarters.

He made his way directly to a public telephone booth. He telephoned the
Lawrence home and asked for Evelyn Rogers. A maid answered and informed
him that Evelyn had left home fifteen minutes previously.

"Any idea where she was going?" questioned Carroll.

The answer came promptly: it mentioned the city's leading department
store--"she's gone there to get a beauty treatment," vouchsafed the maid.

Carroll was not a little chagrined. Evelyn Rogers had put him in more
hopeless positions in their brief acquaintanceship than he had
experienced in years. There was his call upon her the previous night with
its role of dual entertainer to the young lady with a nineteen-year-old
college freshman. And now a vigil outside a beauty parlor.

But he went grimly to work. He located the beauty parlor on the third
floor of the giant store, and paced determinedly back and forth before
its doors.

A half hour passed; an hour--two hours. He concluded that Evelyn must be
purchasing her beauty in job lots. When two hours and thirty-five
minutes had elapsed Evelyn emerged--and Carroll groaned. With her were
three other girls, as chattery, as immature, as Evelyn herself.

She swept down upon him in force--tongue wagging at both ends--

"You naughty, _naughty_ man!" she chided. "You abso_lute_ly deserted me
last night. Why, I didn't even know that you had gone--until Sis came in
and said you had asked her to extend your respects. Good gracious! I
almost _died_!"

"I'm sorry--really," returned Carroll humbly--"But you seemed so
interested in that young man--and I had gotten into an absorbing
conversation with your sister and brother-in-law. I'm not used to girls,
you know."

"Kidder! I think you're simply elegant!" She turned to her giggling
friends and introduced them gushingly. Carroll was in misery--a martyr to
the cause. But Evelyn would not let him get away. Through her sudden
friendship with the great detective, Evelyn was building up a reputation
that was destined to survive for years, and she was not one to fail to
make the most of her opportunities.

It was not until almost an hour later, when the other three girls had
left for their homes--left only after they had hung around until the
ultimate moment before lunch--that Carroll found himself alone with his
little gold mine of data. He bent his head hopefully--

"Were you planning to eat lunch downtown?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh!"

"Su