for
it for two hours, with Bill--I mean, Mr. Sanderson--gnawing his nails
with impatience. He thought I had filed it wrong, and you might have
made me lose my job."

Unconsciously her slightly husky contralto voice had sunk lower and
trembled audibly.

"I'm awfully sorry. I shan't touch your files again, Miss Crain."

"Oh--go on and call me Penny," she conceded impatiently. "What do you
want now?... And you can get anything you need out of the files if
you'll just put the folder in the bottom drawer of my desk, so that I
can file it myself--correctly!"

"Thank you, Penny," Bonnie Dundee said gravely. "I'd like awfully to
have the complete transcript of 'The State versus Maginty.' Mr.
Sanderson is determined to get a conviction where our former district
attorney most ingloriously failed. The new trial comes up in two weeks,
and he wants me to try to uncover a missing link of evidence."

"I know," she nodded, and stretched her short, slender body to pull down
the two heavy volumes he required.

Without a by-your-leave, Special Investigator Dundee resumed his
comfortable seat, and laid the first of the volumes open upon his knees.
But he did not seem to take a great deal of interest in the impanelling
of jurors in the case of one Rufus Maginty, who had won the temporary
triumph of a "hung jury" under the handling of the state's case by
District Attorney Sherwood, deposed in November's election.

Rather, his eyes followed the small, brisk figure of Miss Penelope
Crain, as it moved about the room, and his ears listened to the somehow
charming though emphatic tapping of her French heels.... French heels!
Hadn't she been wearing sensible, Cuban-heeled Oxfords all other days of
this first week of his "attachment" to the district attorney's
office?... Cunning little thing, for all her thorniness and her
sharpness with him, which he now saw that he had deserved.... Pretty,
too.... Damned pretty!... What color was that dress of hers?... Ummm,
let's see ... Chartreuse, didn't they call it? Chartreuse with big brown
dots in it. Bet it was sleeveless under that short little jacket of
golden-brown chiffon velvet.... By Jove--and Dundee lapsed into one of
the Englishisms he had picked up during his six months' work in England
as a tyro in the records department of Scotland Yard, before he had come
to Hamilton to make a humble beginning as a cub detective on the
Homicide Squad--yes, by Jove, she was all dressed up, for some rea