r
brought them down to what few dinners she got here. I'm so fleshy like
I never get up on the top floor. Here, Betty, you Betty! Come show this
lady the room on the top floor, the one Miss Dingus just left," she
called to a slouchy colored girl who was washing dishes at the sink.

"Dinner at half past one," boomed the landlady to Josie's back as she
followed Betty up the narrow stairs.

"I ain't ter say cleaned up that there top floor room yit," confessed
the maid, "but I'll try ter git it in fust rate fix befo' come night
time."

"Oh, that's all right," said Josie. "You just give me some clean sheets
and a clean pillow case and I won't mind the rest at all."

The room was large, the third floor back, with windows overlooking
dingy back yards. Its disorder was astonishing.

"I didn't know it wa' quite so stirred up as this," exclaimed the girl.
"These here, folks ain't many er 'em got no raisin'. They ought ter git
bo'd an' lodgin' in a pig pen. I's kinder fussed ter be a showin' you
sich a spot. Well," she added philosophically: "What kin you expect
from a hog but a grunt?"

Josie laughed.

"Never mind, Betty," she said, giving the girl a quarter. "I can manage
very well. You go on and finish your dishes and I will make up the bed
myself if you get the bed linen."

Betty looked at Josie curiously.

"Say, miss, you belies yo' looks. You got the 'pearance er these here
folks but you ain't got they ways. I been wuckin' in this here bo'din
house fer three years an' I ain't never had a one of them give me mo'n
a dime at a time unless'n it wa' ter git me not to tell Mrs. Pete 'bout
some devilment or other they done got in."

Josie had not thought it necessary to be other than herself before the
colored maid but she took herself severely to task for lowering her
guard, even with anyone seemingly so unimportant as Betty.

"Father used to say that small things were the stumbling blocks of some
of the biggest detectives," she said to herself. "I'll try to do
better."

The grateful Betty returned immediately with clean sheets and pillow
slips and one small towel. She then departed to finish her dishwashing.

As soon as she was alone Josie, first taking the precaution of locking
the door, began a search in the dirty grate for any papers that might
prove of importance to the matter in hand.

The grate was piled high with old torn letters and some had been dumped
in without even being mutilated. A match had eviden