te last night to a serious case in
Summitville, and is still there. Burns traced him there. We have made
guarded inquiry at the Greenwood Club, and through the village. There
is absolutely nothing to go on but this. On the embankment above the
railroad, at the point where we found the machine, is a small house.
An old woman and a daughter, who is very lame, live there. They say
that they distinctly heard the shock when the Dragon Fly hit the car,
and they went to the bottom of their garden and looked over. The
automobile was there; they could see the lights, and they thought
someone had been injured. It was very dark, but they could make out
two figures, standing together. The women were curious, and, leaving
the fence, they went back and by a roundabout path down to the road.
When they got there the car was still standing, the headlight broken
and the bonnet crushed, but there was no one to be seen."

The detective went away immediately, and to Gertrude and me was left
the woman's part, to watch and wait. By luncheon nothing had been
found, and I was frantic. I went up-stairs to Halsey's room finally,
from sheer inability to sit across from Gertrude any longer, and meet
her terror-filled eyes.

Liddy was in my dressing-room, suspiciously red-eyed, and trying to put
a right sleeve in a left armhole of a new waist for me. I was too much
shaken to scold.

"What name did that woman in the kitchen give?" she demanded, viciously
ripping out the offending sleeve.

"Bliss. Mattie Bliss," I replied.

"Bliss. M. B. Well, that's not what she has on he suitcase. It is
marked N. F. C."

The new cook and her initials troubled me not at all. I put on my
bonnet and sent for what the Casanova liveryman called a "stylish
turnout." Having once made up my mind to a course of action, I am not
one to turn back. Warner drove me; he was plainly disgusted, and he
steered the livery horse as he would the Dragon Fly, feeling uneasily
with his left foot for the clutch, and working his right elbow at an
imaginary horn every time a dog got in the way.

Warner had something on his mind, and after we had turned into the
road, he voiced it.

"Miss Innes," he said. "I overheard a part of a conversation yesterday
that I didn't understand. It wasn't my business to understand it, for
that matter. But I've been thinking all day that I'd better tell you.
Yesterday afternoon, while you and Miss Gertrude were out driving, I
had