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paper woman during my three years' residence. He opened the door with a grin of sympathy as the car reached my floor. As though to give more active expression to his feelings he caught up my bag and gave it a place of honor on his own stool.

"Going far?" he queried as I alighted at the main corridor.

"I may be back in twenty-four hours and I may not be back for twenty-four days," I answered cautiously—I knew Madelyn Mack!

As I waited for the whir of the taxicab, I appropriated the evening paper on the night clerk's desk. The Rennick murder case had been given a three-column head on the front page. If I had not been so absorbed in the Farragut trial, it could not have escaped me. I had not finished the head-lines, however, when the taxi, with a promptness almost uncanny, rumbled up to the curb.

I threw myself back against the cushions, switched on the electric light, and spread my paper over my knee, as the chauffeur turned off toward Fifth Avenue. The story was well written and had made much of a few facts. Trust my newspaper instinct to know that! I had expected a fantastic puzzle—when it could spur Madelyn into action within six hours after her landing—but I was hardly anticipating a problem such as I could read between rather than in the lines of type before me.