to
cellar and all the rest?"

"You bet we did," returned the policeman, allowing himself the relief
of a grin now. "I guess you was right about the practical joke. But
you must excuse us if we look behind these curtains."

"Under the table, too!" laughed Logan, jumping to his feet. "Stand and
deliver, Rolls!"

Petro obeyed rather reluctantly, feeling that he had been made a fool
of, at best, in his stupid wish to be good-natured. It might be a
joke, as Logan insisted, but something told him it was not. The look
on the fellow's face as he gulped down the champagne cup had not been
funny. It was in Petro's mind that he had been brought in to cover up
with his presence an unpleasant incident and ignorantly to trick the
police.

Of course, if there were a girl in the house, the police would have
found her. But--there was something queer. He meant to have it all out
with Logan when the police were gone. Meantime, however, he behaved
loyally and stood up to leave the table clear while one of the
detectives did actually bend down to peer under it. As the policeman
stooped Peter mechanically pulled the chair back, and doing so he
caught sight of a thin blue streak lying, like solidified cigarette
smoke, across the red brocade cushion. In this smoke-blue streak there
were little things that glistened--little silver things shaped like
crescent moons set at regular intervals from each other. Peter had
been unconsciously sitting on the smoke wreath, and as the policeman
rose he deliberately sat down on it again. He felt suddenly sick, and
his heart was large and cold in his breast, where it did not beat, but
floundered like a caught fish.

CHAPTER XXII

THE FRAGRANCE OF FRESIAS

Winifred Child had been in this house, or else she had sold or given
the Moon dress to another girl who had been here.

Thoughts were flashing through Peter's brain with the sharp quickness
of motion pictures following one another to a far conclusion. Of the
girl he could not be sure. The lost dryad, needing money more than she
needed a smart evening gown, might well have disposed of Ena's gift.
And yet Petro had--strangely enough it had seemed to him then--thought
of Winifred and the mysterious "dryad door" on the _Monarchic_ the
moment he came into this place.

The perfume of the mirror room was here--the perfume which made all
Nadine's model dresses delicately fragrant of spring flowers; fresias,
the youngest dryad had said they were