of the young woman, Burke sat bewildered
by embarrassment for once in his life, and quite at a loss.

"What's that?" he said, dubiously.

The girl explained the matter explicitly enough.

"What do you mean by this outrage?" she stormed. Her voice was low
and rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very hallmark of
gentility. But, now, it was surcharged with an indignant amazement over
the indignity put upon her by the representatives of the law. Then,
abruptly, the blue eyes were softened in their fires, as by the sudden
nearness of tears.

"What do you mean?" the girl repeated. Her slim form was tense with
wrath. "I demand my instant release." There was indescribable rebuke in
her slow emphasis of the words.

Burke was impressed in spite of himself, in spite of his accustomed cold
indifference to the feelings of others as necessity compelled him
to make investigation of them. His harsh, blustering voice softened
perceptibly, and he spoke in a wheedling tone, such as one might employ
in the effort to tranquillize a spoiled child in a fit of temper.

"Wait a minute," he remonstrated. "Wait a minute!" He made a pacifically
courteous gesture toward one of the chairs, which stood by an end of the
desk. "Sit down," he invited, with an effort toward cajoling.

The scorn of the girl was superb. Her voice came icily, as she answered:

"I shall do nothing of the sort. Sit down, indeed!--here! Why, I
have been arrested----" There came a break in the music of her tones
throbbing resentment. A little sob crept in, and broke the sequence of
words. The dainty face was vivid with shame. "I--" she faltered, "I've
been arrested--by a common policeman!"

The Inspector seized on the one flaw left him for defense against her
indictment.

"No, no, miss," he argued, earnestly. "Excuse me. It wasn't any common
policeman--it was a detective sergeant."

But his effort to placate was quite in vain. The ingenuous little beauty
with the child's face and the blue eyes so widely opened fairly panted
in her revolt against the ignominy of her position, and was not to be so
easily appeased. Her voice came vibrant with disdain. Her level gaze on
the Inspector was of a sort to suggest to him anxieties over possible
complications here.

"You wait!" she cried violently. "You just wait, I tell you, until my
papa hears of this!"

Burke regarded the furious girl doubtfully.

"Who is your papa?" he asked, with a bit of alarm stirring i