earfully responsible for each other."

"There was no mention of the fire in any of your books."

"Mmph. I'd be apt to bust into print with that, wouldn't I? But I
don't mind informing you--just between us girls, as your friend Mr.
Krech would say--that you're in the presence of an honest-to-goodness
heroine!"

"I knew that," said Peter Creighton simply.

There followed for him a somewhat curious evening. No detective worth
his salt will permit extraneous matters to thrust themselves between
his mind and the immediate problem with which it should be occupied,
and Creighton really had a very high sense of duty. When they had
taken themselves out of the house and settled down in the cozy corner
of the big veranda, he punctiliously strove to concentrate on a dagger
and a notebook and a murder, but ever and anon, as he tried to post
himself on the manifold ramifications of the affair to date, the
conversation would persist in taking unexpected trips to the Orient.
His interest in this topic was so keen that he blamed these divagations
on himself, and since a clever woman is cleverer than the cleverest
man, it never once occurred to him that the guiding-reins of their talk
lay in a pair of slender, capable, sun-browned hands. Miss Ocky
preferred almost any subject that evening to the one of paramount
importance.

He sat a while after she bade him good-night and left him, his thoughts
a medley of vague impressions, confused, half-formed, inchoate. He
tried to fix his mind on Simon Varr and ended by surrendering it to the
vivid, vital personality of Miss Ocky.

When he went upstairs to his room the first object that caught his
attention was a slender volume, beautifully bound, that lay on his
dressing-table. "The Mystery of Lhasa." He had not heard of that one.
A glance at the title-page accounted for that. Privately printed. On
the flyleaf, inscribed in a bold, dashing hand, were the words, "For
Peter Creighton--a master of mysteries--from October Copley."

"That's mighty nice of her," he told himself, putting it down. "Golly,
what a woman! She has packed more life into each of her years than
most men get in their three-score-and-ten."

The hour was early for his metropolitan standards. He thought of the
balcony outside his window, and forthwith carried a comfortable chair
to that cool retreat. He had lighted a cigar and established himself
contentedly before a low voice challenged him from the darkness