d he meet you to pay you your wages?"

"On some corner," said the other vaguely.

"Then he took you to the big house and left you there," urged Jones.

"No; he left me on the street corner. 'When the feet iss in the window,'
he says, 'you play.'"

"It comes to this," drawled Average Jones intently, looking the employee
between his vacuous eyes. "Ransom shipped the chair to Plymouth Street
and from there to Linder's house. He figured out that Linder would put
it in his study and do his sitting at the window in it. And you were to
know when he was there by seeing his feet in the window, and give the
signal when you saw him. It must have been a signal to somebody pretty
far off, or he wouldn't have chosen so loud an instrument as a B-flat
trombone."

"I can play the B-flat trombone louder as any man in the business,"
asserted Schlichting with proud conviction.

"But what gets me," pursued Average Jones, "is the purpose of the
signal. Whom was it for?"

"I don't know nothing," said the other complacently. "I only know to
play the B-flat trombone louder as any man in the world."

Average Jones paid him a lump sum, dismissed him and returned to the
Cosmic Club, there to ponder the problem. What next? To accuse Ransom,
the mysterious hirer of a B-flat trombone virtuosity, without sufficient
proof upon which to base even a claim of cross-examination, would be
to block his own game then and there, for Ransom could, and very likely
would, go away, leaving no trace. Who was Ransom, anyway? And what
relation, if any, did he bear to Linder?

Absorbed in these considerations, he failed to notice that the club was
filling up beyond its wont. A hand fell on his shoulder.

"Hello, Average. Haven't seen you at a Saturday special night since you
started your hobby."

It was Bertram. "What's on?" Average Jones asked him, shaking hands.

"Freak concert. Bellerding has trotted out part of his collection of
mediaeval musical instruments, and some professionals are going to play
them. Waldemar is at our table. Come and join us."

Conversation at the round-table was general and lively that evening,
and not until the port came on--the prideful club port, served only on
special occasions and in wonderful, delicate glasses--did Average Jones
get an opportunity to speak to Waldemar aside.

"I've been looking into that Linder matter a little."

"Indeed. I've about given up hope."

"You spoke of an old scandal in Linder's career. W