“It was extraordinary, because I was once photographed in plus-fours. Daddy took the picture on a day when we had a lot of old Roedean girls down at Bishop’s Stortford and we played a sort of pastoral, and I borrowed my cousin’s plus-fours because I was supposed to represent a man. Daddy was rather amused and took a picture, and said it was the best photograph that he ever had of me.” Mr. Reeder ran his fingers through his scanty hair. “What did he say about the brooch?” Miss Gillette was not sure that he said anything that was intelligent. It was not until after she had threatened to call for the manager, and the red-haired young man had retired abashed--“It was only then,” said Miss Gillette, “that we felt that we oughtn’t to have been so stupid and we should have asked him his name and address.” Mr. Reeder nodded his agreement. “He was a jeweller, his father was ill, he had under-valued a brooch, and he had seen a portrait of my young friend in plus-fours. That’s very remarkable. It is a great pity; you will very likely never see him again----” “But we have,” interrupted Miss Gillette. “He was on the tram and he followed us right down here, in fact--he is outside the house at this minute.” Mr. Reeder stared at her. “Did you speak to him?” “Of course we did not speak to him,” said Miss Gillette scornfully. “How could you speak to a red-haired young man in the street! He didn’t speak to us either, and he just sat in the corner of the tramcar and kept looking at us from behind his newspaper.” Mr. Reeder walked to the window, pulled aside the curtain gently, and peered out. Standing under a lamp post, and barely visible, was a figure of a man, and even as Mr. Reeder looked, as though aware of the scrutiny, he turned rapidly in the direction of Lewisham High Road. In a moment Mr. Reeder was out of the room, flying downstairs, but when he came to the street, it was absolutely empty of pedestrians. A tram was moving towards London. He saw a slim figure of a young man leap upon the footboard. By the time he reached the corner of the road, the car was beyond pursuit. Mr. Reeder looked round for a taxicab, but there was none in sight, and with great reluctance and conscious that he was bareheaded and that a drizzling rain was falling, and, in consequence, he must look a little ridiculous, he made his way back to the house. And yet for all his failure, there was a curious sense of elation in J.G. Reeder’s heart, for the mystery of certain strange disappearances was almost solved. To Miss Gillette he was a great disappointment, for he seemed no longer interested in red-haired young men, or brooches, or even young ladies in plus-fours, and she went back to London, with her friend, her faith shaken in her employer. With great care Mr. Reeder composed an agony column advertisement which he telephoned to four newspapers: “Red-haired young man, please communicate with plus-four girl.” The address that followed was that of his own office.