the
case, doesn't it?"

"Yes," I admitted. "It, also, is plausible."

"It is more than plausible," he said quietly. "Whatever the details
may be, the body of the theory itself is unimpeachable--it's the only
one which fits the facts. I believe it capable of proof. Don't you see
how the note helps to prove it?"

"The note?"

I started at the word, and my suspicions sprang into life again. I
looked at him quickly, but his eyes were on the cloth, and he was
rolling up innumerable little pellets of bread.

"That note," he added, "proved two things. One was that the writer was
deeply interested in Miss Holladay's welfare; the other was that he or
she knew Rogers, the clerk, intimately--more than intimately--almost
as well as a physician knows an old patient."

"I admit the first," I said. "You'll have to explain the second."

"The second is self-evident. How did the writer of the note know of
Rogers's infirmity?"

"His infirmity?"

"Certainly--his color-blindness. I confess, I'm puzzled. How _could_
anyone else know it when Rogers himself didn't know it? That's what I
should like to have explained. Perhaps there's only one man or woman
in the world who could know--well, that's the one who wrote the note.
Now, who is it?"

"But," I began, quickly, then stopped; should I set him right? Or was
this a trap he had prepared for me?

His eyes were not on the cloth now, but on me. There was a light in
them I did not quite understand. I felt that I must be sure of my
ground before I went forward.

"It should be very easy to trace the writer of the note," I said.

"The police have not found it so."

"No?"

"No. It was given to the door-keeper by a boy--just an ordinary boy of
from twelve to fourteen years--the man didn't notice him especially.
He said there was no answer and went away. How are the police to find
that boy? Suppose they do find him? Probably all he could tell them
would be that a man stopped him at the corner and gave him a quarter
to take the note to the coroner's office."

"He might give a description of the man," I ventured.

"What would a boy's description be worth? It would be, at the best,
vague and indefinite. Besides, they've not even found the boy. Now, to
return to the note."

We had come to the coffee and cigars, and I felt it time to protest.

"Before we return to the note, Mr. Godfrey," I said, "I'd like to ask
you two direct questions. What interest have you in the matter?"

"Th