"He told you so?" "Yes. That is--the department is a bit crowded. He--er--asked me--Well, we reckoned we could do without her." "I see. Go on." "So I just came up-town, meanin' to talk things over, an' find her a new job, but she took it all wrong." Clancy whirled around on Carshaw. Evidently he had heard enough from Fowle. "And you?" he snapped. "I know nothing of either party," was the calm answer. "I couldn't help overhearing this fellow insulting a lady, so put him where he belongs--in the gutter." "Mr. Clancy," interrupted the sergeant, "you're wanted on the phone." The detective was detained a good five minutes. When he returned he walked straight up to Fowle. "Quit!" he said, with a scornful and sidelong jerk of the head. "You got what you wanted. Get out, and leave Miss Bartlett alone in the future." Fowle needed no second bidding. "As for me?" inquired Carshaw, with arched eyebrows. "May I drop you in Madison Avenue?" said Clancy. Once the police car was speeding down-town he grew chatty. "Wish I had seen you trimming Fowle," he said pleasantly. "I've a notion he had a finger in the pie of Winifred Bartlett's dismissal." "It may be." Carshaw's tone was indifferent. Just then he was aware only of a very definite resentment. His mother would be waiting for dinner, and alarmed, like all mothers who own motoring sons. The detective looked surprised, but made his point, for all that. "I suppose you'll be meeting that very charming young lady again one of these days," he said. "I? Why? Most unlikely." "Not so. Do you floor every man you see annoying a woman in the streets?" "Well--er--" "Just so. Winifred interested you. She interests me. I mean to keep an eye on her, a friendly eye. If you and she come together again, let me know." "Really--" "No wonder you are ready with a punch. You won't let a man speak. Listen, now. The patrolman held you and Fowle because he had orders to arrest, on any pretext or none, any one who seemed to have the remotest connection with the house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street, where Winifred Bartlett lives with her aunt. You've read of the Yacht Mystery and the lassoing of Ronald Tower?" "Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tower are my close friends." "Exactly. Now, Rachel Craik, Winifred's aunt, was released from custody an hour ago. She would have been charged with complicity in the supposed murder of Tower. I say 'supposed' because there was no murder. Mr. Tower has returned home, safe and sound--" "By Jove, that's good news! But what a strange business it is! My mother was with Helen Tower this morning, trying to console her." "Good! Now, perhaps, you'll sit up and take notice. The truth is that the mystery of this outrage on Tower is not--cannot be--of recent origin. I'm sure it is bound up with some long-forgotten occurrence, possibly a crime, in which the secret of the birth and parentage of Winifred Bartlett is involved. That girl is no more the niece of her 'aunt' than I am her nephew."