he muttered, "though I don't see what good it will do you.
Plenty of interpreters at headquarters. Point is, are you coming
peaceably, or will I have to wake up a patrolman to get a wagon?"

The Chinaman was on the point of collapse. Garth practically carried him
to the corner. He experienced a feeling of remorse, which, however,
vanished before the recollection of the queue, glistening, serpent-like.

He was relieved to turn his man over at headquarters. He saw him placed
in an empty detention cell.

"Sleep tight," he called as the key turned. "Maybe you'll learn English
by morning."

His own sleep was untroubled, save by his persistent uneasiness about
Nora.

As soon as he was up the next morning he telephoned the Bureau of
Licenses and apparently ran his one clue into a dead wall. The
limousine, he found, belonged to Thomas Black, a young man of more than
ordinary wealth and position. Garth flushed uncomfortably. He began to
suspect that he had been guilty of an indiscretion, for Black, some
years ago, had married the sister of Rufus Manford, whose recent
selection as head of the Society for Social Justice had set in motion a
cumbersome amount of self-satisfied and unusually ill-designed activity
against crime. Still Garth knew that Manford was working with the
inspector now on some urgent cases about which little was said at
headquarters. It was possible, then, that the trail of coins had been
arranged by Manford in the society's office for a purpose which his
interference might have destroyed.

But the growing day diminished the importance of the whole adventure.
That returned to it only when the telephone summoned him as he was about
to leave his rooms.

"Hello!" he called.

The voice that answered was gruff, disapproving, almost reproachful, he
would have said.

"It's Ed, at headquarters. Say, you've got me in bad. Hustle on down.
Inspector's on his ear and wants you."

"What's up, Ed?"

"That pigtail of yours. Can't make out the chief. Might be a member of
his own family."

"What are you driving at, Ed? What's the matter with the pigtail?"

"Dead--that's all."

"Dead!" Garth echoed.

"Yup. Must have done it right after you left. Choked himself to heaven
with his bloomin' queue. Now if he'd had it cut off proper--"

CHAPTER XI

NORA DISAPPEARS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE

For the first time Garth entered the inspector's office with the
discomfort of a culprit. Yet he could not accuse himsel