ed. "But they
was somethin' else that struck me as a little funny, when I come to
think of it--"

"Well?" Sanderson prodded, as the man halted uncertainly.

"Well, it's like I told you, it was my job to burn the papers. That
scar-face maid of Mis' Selim's put everything--garbage and trash--in a
big garbage can outside the back door, and I burnt 'em up. So I was
kinder surprised Sat'dy mornin', when I went to stoke up the laundry
heater, to find somebody'd been meddlin' with my drafts and had let the
fire go clean out. I had to clean out the ashes and build a new fire--"

"You're trying to say, I suppose, that you could tell by the ashes that
someone had been burning papers in the laundry heater?" Sanderson asked,
with a quick glance at Dundee's tense face.

"That's right, sir," Rawlins agreed eagerly. "You know what kind of
ashes a mess o' paper makes--layers of white ashes, sir, that kinder
looks like papers yit."

"Yes, I know.... And you found layers of white ashes, which you took
particular pains to clean out?" Sanderson asked bitterly.

"Yes, sir. So's I could build a new fire--"

"Did you speak to the maid--ask her if she'd been 'meddlin' with your
drafts'?"

"Yes, sir, I did!" the man answered with a trace of the belligerence he
had undoubtedly shown to Lydia. "She said _she_ didn't open no dampers,
claimed the heater was the same as usual when she left Friday night to
go to a movie. So I reckin it was the poor lady herself, burnin' up love
letters, maybe, or some such truck--"

"You're to keep your 'reckins' to yourself, Rawlins," Sanderson cut in
emphatically. "Remember, now, you're not to tell anybody else what
you've just told me.... If that's all, you can go now, and I'm much
obliged to you. Leave your address with the young lady here. You'll be
needed later, of course."

The relieved man hurried out of the room on Penny's heels. Sanderson
shrugged, then, when the door had closed, began heavily:

"It looks like you're right, Bonnie, about that blackmail business.
As the astute Rawlins says, 'love letters, maybe, or some such
truck....' Of course it all fits in with your theory that Nita had made
up her mind to reform, marry Ralph Hammond, and be a very good girl
indeed.... All right! You can have Penny in now. I think I know pretty
well what you're going to ask her. And I may as well tell you that when
Roger Crain skipped town with some securities he was known to possess, he
hadn't got them fro