-store on an errand and do it quietly. Just
say, 'The lady has come.'"

"'The lady has come,'" repeated Mrs. Tate. "Very well, sir, and I hope
it will be soon. The milk-bill alone is almost double what it was."

"How much is the child's board?" I asked.

"Three dollars a week, including his washing."

"Very well," I said. "Now, Mrs. Tate, I am going to pay last week's
board and a week in advance. If the mother comes, she is to know
nothing of this visit--absolutely not a word, and, in return for your
silence, you may use this money for--something for your own children."

Her tired, faded face lighted up, and I saw her glance at the little
Tates' small feet. Shoes, I divined--the feet of the genteel poor
being almost as expensive as their stomachs.

As we went back Mr. Jamieson made only one remark: I think he was
laboring under the weight of a great disappointment.

"Is King's a children's outfitting place?" he asked.

"Not especially. It is a general department store."

He was silent after that, but he went to the telephone as soon as we
got home, and called up King and Company, in the city.

After a time he got the general manager, and they talked for some time.
When Mr. Jamieson hung up the receiver he turned to me.

"The plot thickens," he said with his ready smile. "There are four
women named Wallace at King's none of them married, and none over
twenty. I think I shall go up to the city to-night. I want to go to
the Children's Hospital. But before I go, Miss Innes, I wish you would
be more frank with me than you have been yet. I want you to show me
the revolver you picked up in the tulip bed."

So he had known all along!

"It WAS a revolver, Mr. Jamieson," I admitted, cornered at last, "but I
can not show it to you. It is not in my possession."

CHAPTER XXII

A LADDER OUT OF PLACE

At dinner Mr. Jamieson suggested sending a man out in his place for a
couple of days, but Halsey was certain there would be nothing more, and
felt that he and Alex could manage the situation. The detective went
back to town early in the evening, and by nine o'clock Halsey, who had
been playing golf--as a man does anything to take his mind away from
trouble--was sleeping soundly on the big leather davenport in the
living-room.

I sat and knitted, pretending not to notice when Gertrude got up and
wandered out into the starlight. As soon as I was satisfied that she
had gone, however, I went out cautio