door into the
street. It was gone, weaving swiftly like a small dog through the
straggling crowd. It went out of sight quickly into a nearby alley.

"Holy Ned!" Puffy held a bleeding wrist in his good hand. "I'm getting
this way from _being_ with you."

Jim Drake's lips quivered strangely and he turned pale.

"I wanna' go home. Don't wanna' see anyone. No one, understand?"

Puffy nodded, but Drake persisted brokenly.

"Fox woman, that's what she is. Darned old fox woman wouldn't play
fair...!" His lips murmured off into something Puffy couldn't
understand.

* * * * *

Long shafts of sunlight split the obscure shadows that had hidden Jim
Drake's room for the past twelve hours. Drake turned over carefully in
bed, groaned and reached for the full glass on the table.

"Puffy!" His voice arose in shattering crescendo across the stillness
of the rich apartment and crashed against the door. "Puffy--it's me.
Take these damned rocks off my head."

Adams opened the door and came forward with a sly grin on his face.

"Okay--Okay." He was impatient. "I'm coming, Cinderella."

Drake swallowed the contents of the glass in a single gulp and
stretched out with a sickly grin.

"That was a wonderful dream I had last night," he said weakly. "Remind
me to call Walt Disney."

Adams went across the room and drew open the curtains. A two o'clock
sun slipped into the room and Drake hid himself hurriedly in the
pillow.

"Turn out that damned light," he shouted. "Now--about that fox woman.
Walt Disney oughta' pay...."

Puffy had braced his feet and placed his stocky arms behind his back.

"It wasn't any dream," he said calmly.

"Yea, I know. I was drunk."

"It wasn't a dream," Puffy said stubbornly. "That girl you saw really
was a fox. At least she turned into one. Oh! Damn!"

He tossed the morning paper on the bed.

"Read what the _Star_ had to say about your dream," he said. "They got
the story straighter than I did. We took a lady for a ride, Cinderella,
and she turned into a silver fox."

Drake sat up stiffly. The foolish look of surprise was gone. He
reached for the _Morning Star_. In huge headlines he read:

DARING HOLDUP AT NEW
NIGHT CLUB

World's Largest Diamond Stolen From
Under Eyes of Police

Sober as a lord now, Drake sent his eyes wavering along the column of
newsprint:

Chicago, May 6.--A group of daring jewel thieves last night
stole the Lardner diamond, l