When, moreover, Rollie launched his timid inquiry if the Reverend John Hampstead was there, he got a negative so sharp that the receiver seemed to bite his ear. He broke the connection hastily and sat eyeing the telephone apprehensively, expecting the mouthpiece to open like a solemn eye, scan him inquiringly, and report to Miss Dounay. When it did not, he shrugged his shoulders and elongated his neck to get rid of that noose-like feeling which had just come upon him from nowhere. He had not killed anybody. What was the noose for, then? But this reflection got a most disagreeable answer: "It would kill your mother to know you are an embezzler and a thief. You would then be her murderer." Again he shrugged himself free of the distasteful sensation. "Buck up, Burbeck," he commanded himself, "or you are done for." Once more he grabbed the telephone, and this time more determinedly, for in the midst of his misery one really first-class inspiration had come to him: this was to communicate with the county jail. The minister was really much more likely to have friends in the county jail than in the St. Albans; and it was a safe wager that he went there more frequently. Rollie knew the jailer well. "Hello—Sam," he called. "This is Rollie. Has Doctor Hampstead been there this morning?" "Yeh!" "There now?" "Nope." "Know where he went?" Evidently Sam turned to some one else in the room for information. Rollie heard a voice answering him and caught the words "San Francisco" and "Red Lizard." "Did you get that?" called Sam into the ’phone. "He’s gone to San Francisco." "Yes,—but what’s that got to do with the Red Lizard?" "He came down to see the Red Lizard." "The Red Lizard!" Rollie could not restrain a gasp, and then wondered if gasps are transmitted over the telephone—but went on to ask: "Is the Red Lizard in?" "Yeh!" "What for?" Rollie was clinging to the telephone now like a drowning man to a rope’s end. "He got in some kind of a row with a service elevator man at the St. Albans last night and landed on him with the brass knucks. This morning the judge gave him three months in the county." Rollie clenched his teeth, and his shoulders rocked for a moment. So that was what happened to the Red Lizard! What a long time ago last night was! How many things had happened! Last night he was a crook and a defaulter. To-day he was an honest man, and his accounts would bear the scrutiny of an X-ray. Now if only those diamonds— But Sam had gone right on talking. "We think Doctor Hampstead went to San Francisco on some sort of errand for the Lizard—Red’s got a woman sick over there or something. But, say, the parson telephoned his house before he left here, and they can tell you sure." "All right, thanks." "So long, Rollie!"