us, as he hastened to the door. "We shall be able to manage
it entirely, and the details might make you nervous."

"I couldn't be more nervous than I am," said Bessie; "but I'll leave
you just the same."

Whereupon she went to her room, and Thaddeus, for an hour, was
closeted with the detective, to which he detailed the whole story.

"It's one of the two," said the latter, when Thaddeus had finished,
"and I agree with you it is more likely to be the cook than the
waitress. If it was the waitress, she couldn't have stood your
examination as well as you say she did. Perhaps I'd better see her,
though, and talk to her myself."

"No, I shouldn't," said Thaddeus "we'll pass you off as a business
acquaintance of mine up from town, and you can stay all night and
watch developments."

So it was arranged. The detective was introduced into the family as
a correspondent of Thaddeus's firm, and he settled down to watch the
household. Afternoon and evening went by without developments, and
at about eleven o'clock every light in the house was extinguished,
and the whole family, from the head of the house to the cook, had
apparently retired.

At half-past eleven, however, there were decided signs of life
within the walls of Thaddeus's home. The clew was working
satisfactorily, and the complete revelation of the mystery was close
at hand.

The remainder of the narrative can best be told in the words of the
detective:

"When Mr. Perkins sent for me," he said, "and told me all that had
happened, I made up my mind that he had a servant in his house for
whom the police had been on the lookout for some time. I thought
she was a certain Helen Malony, alias Bridget O'Shaughnessy, alias
many other names, who was nothing more nor less than the agent of a
clever band of thieves who had lifted thousands of dollars of swag
in the line of household silver, valuable books, diamonds, and other
things from private houses, where she had been employed in various
capacities. I could not understand why she should have made 'way
with the dishes and Mrs. Perkins's table-cloth, but there's no
accounting for tastes of people in that line of business, so I
didn't bother much trying to reason that matter out.

"After we'd had dinner and spent the evening in Mr. Perkins's
library, the family went to bed, and I pretended to do the same.
Instead of really going to bed, I waited my chance and slipped down
the stairs into the dining-room, and go