om.

"You'll tell Miss Perrine, Doctor?"

The doctor showed that he understood the warning Graham wished to convey.

The district attorney made a point of walking to the stable to see them
off. Graham gestured angrily as they drove away.

"It's plain as the nose on your face. I was too anxious to test their
attitude toward you, Bobby. He jumped at the chance to run us out of the
house. He'll have several hours during which to turn the place upside
down, to give Katherine the third degree. And we can't go back. We'll
have to see it through."

"Why should he give me a chance to slip away?" Bobby asked.

But before long he realized that Robinson was taking no chances. At the
junction of the road from Smithtown a car picked them up and clung to
their heels all the way to the city.

"Rawlins must have telephoned," Graham said, "while we went to the
stable. They're still playing Howells's game. They'll give you
plenty of rope."

He drove straight to Bobby's apartment. The elevator man verified their
suspicions. Robinson had telephoned the New York police for a search. A
familiar type of metropolitan detective met them in the hall outside
Bobby's door.

"I'm through, gentlemen," he greeted them impudently.

Graham faced him in a burst of temper.

"The city may have to pay for this outrage."

The man grinned.

"I should get gray hairs about that."

He went on downstairs. They entered the apartment to find confusion in
each room. Bureau drawers had been turned upside down. The desk had been
examined with a reckless thoroughness. Graham was frankly worried.

"I wonder if he found anything. If he did you won't get out of town."

"What could he find?" Bobby asked.

"If the court was planted," Graham answered, "why shouldn't these rooms
have been?"

"After last night I don't believe the court was planted," Bobby said.

In the lower hall the elevator man handed Bobby the mail that had come
since the night of his grandfather's murder. In the car again he glanced
over the envelopes. He tore one open with a surprised haste.

"This is Maria's handwriting," he told Graham.

He read the hastily scrawled note aloud with a tone that failed
toward the end.

"DEAR BOBBY;

"You must not, as you say, think me a bad sport. You were very wicked
last night. Maybe you were so because of too many of those naughty little
cocktails. Why should you threaten poor Maria? And you boasted you were
going out to the Cedars to kil