the man he
got it from. Bring the man here. If it's a district messenger and he
doesn't report, but goes straight back to the office, find out who gave
him the note; get his description. Then meet me at Delmonico's."

Rumson called up that restaurant and had Wharton come to the phone.
He asked his chief to wait until a letter he believed to be of great
importance was delivered to him. He explained, but, of necessity,
somewhat sketchily. "It sounds to me," commented his chief, "like a plot
of yours to get a lunch up-town."

"Invitation!" cried Rumson. "I'll be with you in ten minutes."

After Rumson had joined Wharton and Bissell the note arrived. It was
brought to the restaurant by a messenger-boy, who said that in answer to
a call from a saloon on Sixth Avenue he had received it from a young man
in ready-to-wear clothes and a green hat. When Hewitt, the detective,
asked what the young man looked like, the boy said he looked like a
young man in ready-to-wear clothes and a green hat. But when the note
was read the identity of the man who delivered it ceased to be of
importance. The paper on which it was written was without stamped
address or monogram, and carried with it the mixed odors of the
drug-store at which it had been purchased. The handwriting was that of a
woman, and what she had written was: "If the district attorney will come
at once, and alone, to Kessler's Cafe, on the Boston Post Road, near the
city line, he will be told who killed Hermann Banf. If he don't come in
an hour, it will be too late. If he brings anybody with him, he won't
be told anything. Leave your car in the road and walk up the drive. Ida
Earle."

Hewitt, who had sent away the messenger-boy and had been called in to
give expert advice, was enthusiastic.

"Mr. District Attorney," he cried, "that's no crank letter. This
Earle woman is wise. You got to take her as a serious proposition. She
wouldn't make that play if she couldn't get away with it."

"Who is she?" asked Wharton.

To the police, the detective assured them, Ida Earle had been known for
years. When she was young she had been under the protection of a man
high in the ranks of Tammany, and, in consequence, with her different
ventures the Police had never interfered. She now was proprietress of
the road-house in the note described as Kessler's Cafe. It was a place
for joy-riders. There was a cabaret, a hall for public dancing, and
rooms for very private suppers.

In so far