r, though,
found his sense of humor overcoming him again. He gazed at Anthony, hair
rumpled, eyes fogged with anxiety such as he rarely knew, and presently
Johnson Boller was vibrating again. One merry little wheeze escaped and
earned a glare from Anthony, another followed it--and after that Johnson
Boller sat back and haw-hawed frankly until Anthony spoke.

"So far, I have been thinking of the ways in which you cannot leave," he
admitted tartly. "If you'd consent to try my clothes and----"

"Umum," said Mary, shaking her head. "No, no!"

"Then frankly, I don't know what to suggest," said the master of the
apartment. "You are not invisible. You cannot walk through the office
without being seen, Miss Mary--and once you have done that be sure that
your face will be registered in the memory of the employees. You have no
idea of moving from New York, I take it?"

"Hardly."

"Then since you will be about town for years, may I point out that each
man who sees you will remember, also for years, that you left one of
these apartments and----"

He paused, partly in distress and partly because it seemed to him that
Wilkins was whispering to somebody. He sat up then, because Wilkins
_was_ talking and there was another voice he could not at first place.
He had heard it before, many times, and it was very calm, very clear,
very determined; and now Wilkins' tone came distinctly and resignedly.

"Well, of course, if he's expecting you, sir----"

The door closed. Steps approached the living-room. And with Mary sitting
at the table, coffee-cup in hand, furnishing just the homelike touch a
bachelor apartment must normally lack, Hobart Hitchin was with them!

One glance settled the fact that the amateur detective had attained a
high state of nervous tension. Behind his spectacles, the keen eyes
flashed about like a pair of illuminated steel points; his face seemed
tired, but the rest of him was as alive as a steel spring, and his right
hand held a fat brief-case.

Had he been more intimately acquainted with Hobart Hitchin, Anthony Fry
would have trembled. As it was, he felt merely keen annoyance--and then
utter consternation, because Hitchin had stopped with a jerk and was
looking straight at Mary.

"I--er--didn't know," he said.

Poor little Mary, be she who she might, was in a decidedly ticklish
position, however perfectly her outward calm was preserved. Everything
that was chivalrous in Anthony surged up and told him to pr