spats? See
her furs? Some queen to be out a night like this. Don't let her get too
far ahead of you. That's right, Delaney!"

The operative sprang to the curb. He rounded the hood of the taxi. He
slouched along the pavement to the corner, waited for the fraction of a
minute until a limousine passed, then hurried over the Avenue. He
disappeared into the canyon whose walls were towering apartments and
whose end was marked by a row of soft arcs across which, snow falling
from housetops, sparkled in the night like diamonds beyond price.

The Avenue churned with returning theater-parties and night-hawk cabs.
The roar of the city came to the waiting Detective's ears like a giant
turning in his first sleep. The sifting snow sanded against the windows
of the taxi. The purring motor missed sparking now and then. It shook
the cab as it resumed its revolving with a sputter and a cough in the
muffler. The driver huddled deeper in his sheep-skin coat collar. He
snored in synchronism with the engine.

Drew rubbed the glass before him and studied the aspect with
close-lidded intentness. He marked the shut gates of the Mansion down
the Avenue. He saw that the lights from the inner globes had been
extinguished. He counted the staring windows. His eyes lowered to the
soft rose-glow which streamed out through the shut blinds of the
library. Snow was on the slats and sills.

A swift crunch of heavy shoes at the side of the taxi--the turning of
the door-lock--the burly form in black that climbed in, announced
Delaney.

"All right, Chief!" he said somewhat out of breath. "All right--move
over. Here she comes back!"

Drew rubbed a frosted pane with his elbow. A blurred form--close to the
sheltering wall of the side street--revealed itself into Loris
Stockbridge. She turned the corner. She glanced back over her sabled
shoulder. She pressed her gloved hands deep within her muff and almost
ran for the iron-grilled gates of the mansion.

"She connected with a blonde lad in olive-drab uniform!" said Delaney.
"He gave her something that looked to me like a revolver. Wot d'ye make
out-a that, Chief?"

CHAPTER FOUR

"THE MURDER"

Triggy Drew had no good answer for Delaney's question concerning the
revolver. The matter was important in view of the threat aimed toward
Stockbridge. Why Loris should obtain a gun from a rendezvous in a
drug-store was more than the Detective could fathom. He turned to
Delaney.

"Explain yourself!"