uggested, crossing the room to the bookcase which
stood within reaching distance of his big leather-covered armchair.

"Him?" Belle snorted. "How he gonna get in hyer widout no key? 'Sides,
he'd a-tol' me if'n----"

"Belle, how many times must I ask you not to misplace my things?" Dundee
cut in irritably, for he was tired of the discussion, and angry that his
copy of "Who's Who" was missing from its customary place in the
bookcase.

"Me?... I ain't teched none o' yoah things, 'cep'n to dus' 'em and lay
'em down whar I foun' 'em," Belle retorted, mournfulness submerged in
anger.

Dundee looked about the room, then his eyes alighted upon the missing
book, lying upon a shelf that extended across the top of an
old-fashioned hot-air register, set high in the wall between the two
windows. The thick red volume lay close against the wall, its
gold-lettered "rib" facing the room.

"Belle, tell me the truth, and I shall not be angry: did you put that
red book on that shelf?" Dundee asked, his voice steady and kindly in
spite of his excitement.

"Nossuh! I ain't teched it!"

"And you did not put the cover over my parrot's cage, although I had
tipped you well to feed Cap'n and cover him at night," Dundee said
severely.

"I gotta heap o' wuk to do----"

"And you say that Mr. Wilson, one of the two young men on the second
floor, left the front door unlocked when he came in last night?" Dundee
asked. "Does he admit it?"

"Yassuh," Belle told him sulkily. "He say he was tiahed when he got home
'long 'bout midnight, an' he clean fo'got to turn de key in de do' an'
shoot de bolt."

"Thanks, Belle. That will be all now," and Dundee did a great deal to
dispel the chambermaid's gloom by presenting her with a dollar bill.

When she had gone, the detective read the note again, then looked
at it and its envelope more closely. They had a strangely familiar
look.... Suddenly he jerked open a drawer of his desk, on which his new
noiseless typewriter stood, selected a sheet of plain white bond, and
rolled it into the machine. Quickly he tapped out a copy of the strange,
taunting message.

Yes! The left-hand margin was identical, the typing and its degree of
blackness were identical, and the paper on which he had made the copy
was exactly the same as that on which the original had been written.

The truth flashed into his mind. It was no coincidence that he had a
copy of the very book to which his unknown correspondent referred h