e 'phone toward him.

"Yes!" he said, into the telephone. "Yes, this is Marshal Wittaker.
Mr. Millbrook? Yes, I know--765 Locust Avenue. Broken into? What? Oh,
broken out of! While you were out at dinner. Yes. Opened the front
door with a key. Yes. What kind of a key, Mr. Millbrook? Thin,
nickel-silver key. Nothing taken? What's that? Left a dozen solid
silver spoons engraved with your wife's initials? I see. And broke out
through a cellar window. Yes, I understand. No, it doesn't seem
possible, but such things have happened. I'll send--"

He looked around, but Philo Gubb, who had heard the name and address,
was already gone.

"I'll attend to it at once," he concluded, and hung up the receiver.
He turned to Billy Getz. "Billy," he said severely, "is this another
of your jokes?"

"Wittaker," said Billy, "I give you my word I had nothing to do with
this."

"Well, I'll believe you," said Wittaker rather reluctantly. "I thought
it was you. Who do you suppose is trying to take the honor of town
cut-up from you?"

"I can't imagine," said Billy. "Are you going to leave the thing in
Gubb's hands?"

"That mail-order detective? Not much! It is getting serious. I'll send
Purcell up to look the ground over. A man can't make nickel-silver
keys, and break out of houses and leave engraved spoons and forks
around without leaving plenty of traces. We'll have the man to-morrow,
and give him a good scare."

Detective Gubb in the meanwhile had gone directly to Mr. Millbrook's
un-burgled house at 765 Locust Avenue. Mr. Millbrook, a short, stout
man with a husky voice that gurgled when he was excited, opened the
door.

"I'm Deteckative Gubb, of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency's
Correspondence School of Deteckating, come to see about your
un-burglary," said Philo Gubb, opening his coat to show his badge.
"This is a most peculiar case."

"I never heard anything like it in my life!" gurgled Mr. Millbrook.
"Didn't take a thing. Left a dozen spoons. Came in at the front door
and broke out through the cellar window."

"How long have you been married?" asked Mr. Gubb, seating himself on
the edge of a chair and drawing out a notebook and pencil.

"Married? Married? What's that got to do with it?" asked Mr.
Millbrook. "Twenty years next June, if you want to know."

"That makes it a difficult case," said Philo Gubb. "If you was a bride
and a groom it would be easier, but I guess maybe you can tell me the
names of some of the folks