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I knew better than to question him as we drove slowly home, but my ears were open wide for any chance remark he might drop. However, he vouchsafed no comment till we reached home; then he hurried to the study and put an urgent call through to the Arkright mansion. Five minutes later he joined me in the library, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. "It is as I thought," he announced. "Mademoiselle Haroldine went shopping yesterday afternoon, and the unfortunate Conover girl picked her pocket in the store. Forty dollars was stolen—forty dollars and a red bead!"

"She told you this?" I asked. "Why——"

"Non, non," he shook his head. "She did tell me of the forty dollar's, yes; the red bead's loss I already knew. Recall, my friend, how was it the poor dead one was dressed, according to the paper?"

"Er——"

"Précisément. Her costume was a cheap copy, a caricature, if you please, of the smart ensemble affected by Mademoiselle Haroldine. Poor creature, she plied her pitiful trade of pocket-picking once too often, removed the contents of Haroldine's purse, including the sign of vengeance which had been put there, le bon Dieu knows how, and walked forth to her doom. Those who watched for a gray-clad woman with the fatal red ball seized upon her and called down their winds of destruction, even as they did upon the camp of Monsieur Arkright in the mountains of Tibet long years ago. Yes, it is undoubtlessly so."

"Do you think they'll try again?" I asked. "They've already muffed things twice, and——"

"And, as your proverb has it, the third time is the charm," he cut in. "Yes, my friend, they will doubtlessly try again, and again, until they have worked their will, or been diverted. We must bend our energies toward the latter consummation."

"But that's impossible!" I returned. "If those lamas are powerful enough to seek their victims out in France, England and this country and kill them, there's not much chance for the Arkrights in flight, and it's hardly likely we'll be able to argue them out of their determination to exact payment for the theft of their——"

"Zut!" he interrupted with a smile. "You do talk much but say little, Friend Trowbridge. Me, I think it highly probable we shall convince the fish-faced gentlemen from Tibet they have more to gain by foregoing their vengeance than by collecting their debt."

Harrisonville's newest citizen had delayed her debut with truly feminine capriciousness, and my vigil at City Hospital had been long and nerve-racking. Half an hour before I had resorted to the Weigand-Martin method of ending the performance, and, shaking with nervous reaction, took the red, wrinkled and astonishingly vocal morsel of humanity from the nurse's hands and laid it in its mother's arms; then, nearer exhaustion than I cared to admit, set out for home and bed.

A rivulet of light trickled under the study door and the murmur of voices mingled with the acrid aroma of de Grandin’s cigarette came to me as I let myself in the front door. "Eh bien, my friend," the little Frenchman was asserting, "I damn realize that he who sups with the devil must have a long spoon; therefore I have requested your so invaluable advice.

"Trowbridge, mon vieux," his uncannily sharp ears recognized my tread as I stepped softly into the hall, "may we trespass on your time a moment? It is of interest."

With a sigh of regret for my lost sleep I put my obstetrical kit on a chair and pushed open the study door. Opposite de Grandin was seated a figure which might have been the original of the queer little manikins