gue but I thought I'd enjoy it
more if I could hear both sides. So I was workin' my way through the
bushes with my ear stretched until I was within almost a yard of the
window when I steps on a dry branch that cracks like a cap pistol. In a
flash the youth has dropped the basket and whirled on me with a long
carvin' knife. Which was my cue for quick action.

"'Sall right, Ellery," says I. "Friend."

"What friend?" he demands, starin' at me suspicious.

"You know," says I, whisperin' mysterious.

"Oh!" says he. "From Headquarters?"

"You've said it," says I.

"But--but how can I tell," he goes on, "that you ain't----"

"Look!" says I, throwin' back my coat and runnin' my thumb under the
armhole of my vest.

Sure it worked. Why, if you flash a nickel-plated suspender buckle quick
enough you can pass it for a badge even by daylight.

"I didn't think you'd get my letter so soon," says Ellery. "I'm glad you
came, though. See, I've got one of the gang already. He's the
ringleader, too."

"Fine work!" says I. "But what's the plot of the piece? You didn't make
that so clear. Is it a case of----"

"Hist!" says Ellery. "I ain't told him how much I know. Let's get off
where he can't hear. Back in the bushes there."

And when we've circled the lodge and put some shrubbery between us and
the road Ellery consents to open up.

"They're tryin' to do away with Sister Maggie," says he. "You know who
she is--Mrs. Andres Zosco?"

"But I thought she was Myrtle Mapes," says I.

"Ah, that's only her screen name," says Ellery. "It was Maggie Bean back
in Shelby, where we come from. And she was Maggie Bean when she went to
New York and got that job as a stenog. in old Zosco's office. It was
him that gave her a chance to act in the movies, you know. Guess she
made good, eh? And then Zosco got so stuck on her that he married her.
Well, that was all right, too. Course, he's an old pill, but he's got
all kinds of dough. Rollin' in it. Maggie's done a lot for the fam'ly,
too. Gave me a flivver all for myself last Christmas; took me out of the
commission house and started me in at high school again. She's right
there with the check book, Maggie.

"That's what makes them other Zoscos so sore--that Brother Jake and his
wife. See? They'd planned all along comin' in for most of his pile
themselves. Most likely meant to put him out of the way. But when they
comes on and finds the new wife--Well, the game is blocked. It would go
to her