In that ancient Book called Genesis it says that God saw that it was not good for man to live alone. So He gave him a woman to be his companion. Johnny Thompson had read that old Book. He had learned, too, by experience that a man and woman, or boy and girl, fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, will go farther along the road to success in any endeavor than will either alone. It will not seem strange, then, that as he launched forth on a fresh adventure, as he prepared to carry forward the business of solving the mysteries back of the sinister events that had led to the downfall of his good friends Drew Lane and Tom Howe, he should think first of securing a partner for this adventure. And who could better occupy this post of honor than Joyce Mills, daughter of a great detective and partner of Johnny in many a previous adventure?  
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Johnny was not long in seeking her out. Fortune favored him. He arrived just at her lunch hour.
 
“There’s no place like a crowd for talking,” he assured her. “Come over to Biedermann’s, on Adams Street. It’s a German grill. You can get a swell cut of flank steak and all the trimmings for thirty-five cents. And there’s so much racket thrown in that not a soul will hear what we say.”
 
Joyce joined him gladly. To her, every new eating place was a fresh adventure.
 
After they had eaten the steak and onions and were sipping iced tea, Johnny told of his new adventure.
 
Briefly he described his experience at the “Greatest of All Carnivals,” of Greasy Thumb and his con game, and of the Gray Shadow. He even produced the roll of bills that had played so large a part in that night’s adventure.
 
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Had he known all, he might well have regretted this move; for scarcely had he slid the roll deep in his pocket than two small men with sharp eyes and nervous, twitching fingers, sidled from their table to pay their check and leave the room. As they gained the street, the shorter of the two placed a hand to his mouth to say in a hoarse whisper:
 
“Marked money.”
 
Unconscious of all this, Johnny went on with his story. By a telephone call to the office of the Air Mail station he had secured some details regarding the packages that had disappeared with the young pilot.
 
“It seems,” he said, “that one package carried the heaviest insurance possible on a registered package, and that it was mailed to a rather dingy section of the city. That in itself seems strange.”
 
“It does.” Joyce sat up with sudden interest. “Unless you know some things. Would you believe it? I can almost name the consignee of that package.”
 
“You?” Johnny’s face showed his astonishment.
 
“I might, if I would,” she replied soberly.
 
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“You see,” her eyes glowed with fresh fire, “I’ve all but turned radical. It’s working in the store that’s done it, I guess. When you see girls, fine young things with splendid bodies and keen minds, working for fifteen or eighteen dollars a week and trying to make a go of it, it sort of makes you hate the millionaires who own that pile of brick and stone and merchandise they call a store.
 
“Look at that thing of marble out on the lake front.” Her eyes burned like fire. “That place where they keep fish, live fish for folks to look at! It cost a million, they say. Built by a man who ran a big store. Built for a monument to his name, and paid for by the labor of ten thousand folks just like me! Who wouldn’t be a radical?”
 
“I know,” Johnny agreed quietly. “I’ve felt that way myself. And yet it is so easy to go too far.”
 
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“I know,” the girl sighed a trifle wearily. “I’ve thought of that, and I’ve about given the radicals up. Not till I became a Comrade, though. And I happen to know that they were expecting a priceless package. And the address is about where you say it would be.”
 
“They did?” Johnny leaned forward. “That’s something worth knowing!
 
“But look here!” he exclaimed. “They wouldn’t endanger an Air Mail pilot’s life by forcing him to land in a pasture at night!”
 
“There’s no telling what they would do.” The girl paused to consider. “To them the ‘cause,’ as they call it, is all important. Everything and everybody must be sacrificed to that. But where would they get an airplane and a pilot, much less a radio station? Well, they might—”
 
“Try to find out.” Johnny gripped her hand.
 
“I’ll do anything for you.” The girl’s eyes were frank and fearless.
 
Then suddenly her face was clouded.
 
“Johnny,” she cried, “where is my father? I have not seen him for days. I am worried, frightened for him!”
 
“I don’t know.”
 
“Help me find him.” Her words were a cry of pain.
 
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“I will do my best.”
 
“One more thing, Johnny.” She leaned over to whisper in his ear before they parted. “I am not a book sales person at the store. That is a blind. I am a store detective.”
 
Before Johnny could recover from his astonishment at this fresh revelation, she was gone.
 
“Well,” he thought to himself, “so that dark-eyed girl has put one over on me. She’s a ............