The following day was a blue one for me. Deprived of all the exciting activities of the past few weeks I was at a loss what to do with myself. Moreover, I was dissatisfied with the result of those activities. I had won out, so to speak, but my client had not. For her only tragic unhappiness had come of it. Meanwhile that little inner voice continued to whisper that I had not got to the bottom of the case. I could not put that young fellow's amazed and despairing face out of my mind. It did not fit into the theory of his guilt. On top of it all I had had a quarrel with Sadie the night before.

About noon my uncomfortable thoughts were broken into by the entrance of Sadie herself with storm signals flying, to wit: a pair of flashing blue eyes and a red flag hoisted in either cheek. I had supposed that she was already on the way to Amityville with Miss Hamerton, where they were to stay at a sanatorium conducted by a doctor friend of mine.

Before I could speak she exploded like a bomb in my office. "Ben, you've been a fool!"

"Eh?" I said, blinking and looking precious like one, I expect.

She repeated it with amplifications.

"So you said last night," I remarked.

"But I hadn't seen her then."

"Aren't you going to the country?" I asked, hoping to create a diversion.

"Yes, at two o'clock. But I had to see you first."

"To tell me what you thought of me?"

"To beg you to do something."

"What is there to do?"

"You have made a hideous mistake! Ruined both their lives!"

I may have had my own doubts, but it wouldn't have been human to confess them in the face of an attack like this. "Easy, there!" I said sulkily. "Have you discovered any new evidence?"

"Oh, evidence!" she cried scornfully. "I know he couldn't have stolen her pearls, and in your heart you know it, too."

"Sorry," I said sarcastically, "but in conducting my business I have to consult my head before my heart."

"I know it!" she said bitterly. "That's why you've been a fool!"

"Well, next time I'll consult a clairvoyant."

"Oh, don't try to be clever! It's too dreadful! If you had seen her! She will never act again. And he!—he will likely kill himself, if he has not already done it."

This struck a chill to my breast. Sadie had an intuitive sense that I could not afford to despise. At the same time having been called a fool, I couldn't back down.

"I don't see what better he can do," I said hardily.

"You can say that!" she said aghast. "You don't mean it!"

A very real jealousy made me hot. That handsome young blackguard had all the women with him. "Are you in love with him, too?" I asked sarcastically.

It was a mistake. She had me there. "You're doing your best to make me," she retorted.

"What are you abusing me for?" I complained. "I did no more than what I was engaged to do."

"She was distracted!" said Sadie. "She couldn't think for herself. She depended on you."

"Well, I did the best I could for her," I said doggedly. "You seem to think that I enjoyed doing it. There is a perfect case against him."

"There is not!" she said quickly. "Your own evidence that you set such a store by is full of holes!"

I invited her to point them out.

"One of your points against him is that he lately came into possession of a lot of money, presumably the proceeds of the theft. Yet you found the pearls on him, too. One fact contradicts the other."

"How do I know what other activities he's been engaged in?"

"You do not believe that."

"I beg your pardon," I said stiffly. "Permit me to know ............