ep into me. Somehow----"

"In plainer terms," suggested Langdon, "she gave you the eye. What?"

"That's a peculiarly coarse observation."

"Then tell it your own way."

"I will. The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood----"

"Woodn't that bark you!" shouted Langdon, furious. "Go on with the dolly
dialogue or I'll punch your head, you third-rate best seller!"

"But there was no dialogue, Curt. It began and ended in a duet of
silence," he added sentimentally.

"Didn't you say anything? Didn't you try to make a date? Aren't you going
to see her again?"

"I don't know. I am not sure what sweet occult telepathy might have
passed between us, Curtis. . . . Somehow I believe that all is not yet
ended. . . . . Pass the pork! . . . I like to think that somehow, some
day, somewhere----"

"Stop that! You're ending it the way women end short stories in the
thirty-five-centers. What I want to know is, why you think that your
encounter with this girl has anything to do with our finding Reginald
Willett."

There was a basin of warm water simmering on the ashes; Sayre used it as
a finger-bowl, dried his hands on his shirt, lighted his pipe, and then
slowly drew from his hip pocket a flat leather pocket-book. "Curt," he
said, "I'm not selfish. I'm perfectly willing to share glory with you.
You know that, don't you?"

"Sure," muttered Langdon. "You're a bum cook, but otherwise moral
enough."

Sayre opened the pocket-book and produced a photograph.

"Everybody who is searching for Willett," he said, "examined the few
clues he left. Like hundreds of others, you and I, when we first entered
these woods, went to his camp on Gilded Dome, prowled all over it, and
examined the camera which had been picked up in the trail, didn't we?"

"We did. It was a sad scene--his distracted old father----"

"H'm! Did you see his distracted old father, Curt?"

"I? No, of course not. Like everybody else, I respected the grief of that
aged and stricken gentleman----"

"_I_ didn't."

"Hey? Why, you yellow dingo----"

"Curt, as I was snooping about the Italian Garden I happened to glance up
at the mansion--I mean the camp--and I saw by the window a rather jolly
old buck with a waxed moustache and a monocle, smoking a good cigar and
perusing his after-breakfast newspaper. A gardener told me that this
tranquil old bird was Willett Senior, who had arrived the evening before
from Europe via New York. So I went straight into