tive. "If it's difficulty
you long to encounter, you will be likely to have all you want of it.
Indeed, it is the impossible I ask. A woman is to be found of whom we
know nothing save that she wore when last seen a dress heavily
bespangled with black, and that she carried in her visit to Mr. Adams,
at the time of or before the murder, a parasol, of which I can procure
you a glimpse before you start out. She came from, I don't know where,
and she went--but that is what you are to find out. You are not the only
man who is to be put on the job, which, as you see, is next door to a
hopeless one, unless the woman comes forward and proclaims herself.
Indeed, I should despair utterly of your success if it were not for one
small fact which I will now proceed to give you as my special and
confidential agent in this matter. When this woman was about to
disappear from the one eye that was watching her, she approached the
curbstone in front of Hudson's fruit store on 14th Street and lifted up
her right hand, so. It is not much of a clew, but it is all I have at my
disposal, except these five spangles dropped from her dress, and my
conviction that she is not to be found among the questionable women of
the town, but among those who seldom or never come under the eye of the
police. Yet don't let this conviction hamper you. Convictions as a rule
are bad things, and act as a hindrance rather than an inspiration."

Sweetwater, to whom the song of the sirens would have sounded less
sweet, listened with delight and responded with a frank smile and a gay:

"I'll do my best, sir, but don't show me the parasol, only describe it.
I wouldn't like the fellows to chaff me if I fail; I'd rather go quietly
to work and raise no foolish expectations."

"Well, then, it is one of those dainty, nonsensical things made of gray
chiffon, with pearl handle and bows of pink ribbon. I don't believe it
was ever used before, and from the value women usually place on such
fol-de-rols, could only have been left behind under the stress of
extraordinary emotion or fear. The name of the owner was not on it."

"Nor that of the maker?"

Mr. Gryce had expected this question, and was glad not to be
disappointed.

"No, that would have helped us too much."

"And the hour at which this lady was seen on the curbstone at Hudson's?"

"Half-past four; the moment at which the telephone message arrived."

"Very good, sir. It is the hardest task I have ever undertaken, b