ter Morrison. That gairment is the property of that bug-catchin'
architect of his."

Peter shook off the coat and handed it back to Linda.

"Am I acquitted?" he asked lightly; but his surprised eyes were
searching her from braid to toe.

Linda turned from him swiftly. She thrust the packet into a side pocket
and started to the garage with the coat. As she passed inside she
slipped down her hand, slid the sheet of plans from the other papers,
and slipped it into the front of her blouse. She hung the coat back
where she had found it, then suddenly sat down on the side of Peter
Morrison's couch, white and shaken. Peter thought he heard a peculiar
gasp and when he strayed past the door, casually glancing inward, he
saw what he saw, and it brought him to his knees beside Linda with all
speed.

"Linda-girl," he implored, "what in this world has happened?"

Linda struggled to control her voice; but at last she buried her face
in her hands and frankly emitted a sound that she herself would have
described as "howling." Peter knelt back in wonder.

"Of all the things I ever thought about you, Linda," he said, "the one
thing I never did think was that you were hysterical."

If there was one word in Linda's vocabulary more opprobrious than
"nerves," which could be applied to a woman, it was "hysterics." The
great specialist had admitted nerves; hysterics had no standing with
him. Linda herself had no more use for a hysterical woman than she had
for a Gila monster. She straightened suddenly, and in removing her hands
from her face she laid one on each of Peter's shoulders.

"Oh, Peter," she wailed, "I am not a hysterical idiot, but I couldn't
have stood it if that coat had been yours. Peter, I just couldn't have
borne it!"

Peter held himself rigidly in the fear that he might disturb the hands
that were gripping him.

"I see I have the job of educating these damned field mice as to where
they may build with impunity," he said soberly.

But Linda was not to be diverted. She looked straight and deep into his
eyes.

"Peter," she said affirmatively, "you don't know a thing about that
coat, do you?"

"I do not," said Peter promptly.

"You never saw what was in its pockets, did you?"

"Not to my knowledge," answered Peter. "What was in the pockets, Linda?"

Linda thought swiftly. Peter adored his dream house. If she told him
that the plans for it had been stolen by his architect, the house would
be ruined for Peter. A