“Do as you would ordinarily do; only don’t take Peter Paul, into the street, or you’ll have a score of high-school boys trailing you. And—this is the most important—if the dog fails to answer your call at any time, and you can’t readily find him by searching, telephone me, at once, at my office. Good-by.” “I think you are a very staunch friend to those who need you,” she said, gravely and sweetly, giving him her hand. She clung in his mind like a remembered fragrance, after he had gone back to Astor Court Temple to wait. And though he plunged into an intricate scheme of political advertising which was to launch a new local party, her eyes and her voice haunted him. Nor had he banished them, when, two days later, the telephone brought him her clear accents, a little tremulous now. “Peter Paul is gone.” “Since when?” “Since ten this morning. The house is in an uproar.” “I’ll be up in half an hour at the latest.” “Do come quickly. I’m—I’m a little frightened.” “Then you must have something to do,” said Average Jones decisively. “Have you been keeping an eye on the garden?” “Yes.” “Go through it again, looking carefully for signs of disarranged earth. I don’t think you’ll find it, but it’s well to be sure. Let me in at the basement door at half-past one. Judge Ackroyd mustn’t see me.” It was a strangely misshapen presentation of the normally spick-and-span Average Jones that gently rang the basement bell of the old house at the specified hour. All his pockets bulged with lumpy angles. Immediately, upon being admitted by Miss Graham herself, he proceeded to disenburden himself of box after box, such as elastic bands come in, all exhibiting a homogeneous peculiarity, a hole at one end thinly covered with a gelatinous substance. “Be very careful not to let that get broken,” he instructed the mystified girl. “In the course of an hour or so it will melt away itself. Did you see anything suspicious in the garden?” “No!” replied the girl. She picked up one of the boxes. “How odd!” she cried. “Why, there’s something in it that’s alive!” “Very much so. Your friends, the beetles, in fact.” “What! Again? Aren’t you carrying the joke rather far?” “It’s not a joke any more. It’s deadly serious. I’m quite sure,” he concluded in the manner of one who picks his words carefully, “that it may turn out to be just the most serious matter in the world to me.” “As bad as that?” she queried, but the color that flamed in her cheeks belied the lightness of her tone. “Quite. However, that must wait. Where is your uncle?” “Up-stairs in his study.” “Do you think you could take me all through the house sometime this afternoon without his seeing me?” “No, I’m sure I couldn’t. He’s been wandering like an uneasy spirit since Peter Paul disappeared. And he won’t go out, because he is packing.” “So much the worse, either for him or me. Where are your rooms?” “On the second floor.”