und for Santa Barbara to attend her wedding anniversary
tomorrow night. I forget what anniversary it is, Bill, but I have been
informed by my daughter that I'll be very much _de trop_ if I send her
any present other than something in porcelain or China or
Cloisonne--well, Bill, this crazy little blue vase just fills the order.
Understand?"

"Yes, sir. You feel that it would be most graceful on your part if you
could bring this little blue vase down to Santa Barbara with you
tonight. You have to have it tonight, because if you wait until the
store opens on Monday the vase will reach your hostess twenty-four hours
after her anniversary party."

"Exactly, Bill. Now, I've simply got to have that vase. If I had
discovered it yesterday I wouldn't be asking you to get it for me today,
Bill."

"Please do not make any explanations or apologies, Mr. Ricks. You have
described the vase--no you haven't. What sort of blue is it, how tall is
it and what is, approximately, its greatest diameter? Does it set on a
base, or does it not? Is it a solid blue, or is it figured?"

It's a Cloisonne vase, Bill--sort of old Dutch blue, or Delft, with some
Oriental funny-business on it. I couldn't describe it exactly, but it
has some birds and flowers on it. It's about a foot tall and four inches
in diameter and sets on a teak-wood base."

"Very well, sir. You shall have it."

"And you'll deliver it to me in stateroom A, car 7, aboard the train at
Third and Townsend Streets, at seven fifty-five tonight?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Bill. The expense will be trifling. Collect it from the
cashier in the morning, and tell him to charge it to my account." And
Cappy hung up.

At once Mr. Skinner took up the thread of the interrupted conference,
and it was not until three o'clock that Bill Peck left his house and
proceeded downtown to locate Cappy Rick's blue vase.

He proceeded to the block in Sutter Street between Stockton and Powell
Streets, and although he walked patiently up one side of the street and
down the other, not a single vase of any description showed in any shop
window, nor could he find a single shop where such a vase as Cappy had
described might, perchance, be displayed for sale.

"I think the old boy has erred in the co-ordinates of the target," Bill
Peck concluded, "or else I misunderstood him. I'll telephone his house
and ask him to repeat them."

He did, but nobody was at home except a Swedish maid, and all she knew
wa