“Shut up!” snapped Tab, and the desirable silence was his. He finished the last page at eleven, sent off his copy by a punctual messenger, then filling his pipe, stretched himself luxuriously in his mission chair. “Now I’m a free man until Monday afternoon--” The hall telephone signalled at that moment and he got up with a groan. “Boast not!” he growled. “That is the office or I’m a saint!” It was the office, as he had so intelligently foreseen. He snapped a few words at the transmitter and came back to the room. And Tab was very voluble. A Polish gentleman concerned in certain frauds on insurance companies had been arrested, escaped again, and having barricaded himself in his house, was keeping the police at bay with the aid of boiling water and a large axe. “Jacko is enthusiastic about it,” said the savage Tab, speaking thus disrespectfully of his city editor, “says it is real drama--I told him to send the dramatic critic. Gosh--I did his job the other night.” “Going out?” asked Rex with mild interest. “Of course I’m going out, you thick-headed jibberer!” said the other unkindly as he struggled into the collar he had discarded. “I thought all that sort of stuff was invented in the office,” said the young architect monstrously. “Personally I never believe what I read in newspapers.” But Tab had gone. At midnight he joined a little group of police officers that stood at safe range from the besieged house, whose demented occupant had found a shot-gun. Tab was with them until the door of the house was stormed and the defender borne down and clubbed to a state of placidity. At two o’clock in the morning, he and Carver, the chief of the detectives engaged in the case, adjourned to the police mess and had supper. It was half-past three and the streets were lit by the ghostly light of dawn, when he started to walk home. Passing through Park Street, he heard the whirr of wheels and a motor-car flew past him. It had gone a hundred yards when there came to him the explosion of a burst tire. He saw the car swerve and stop. A woman alighted and examined the damage. Apparently she was alone, for he saw her open the tool-box on the running-board, and take out a jack. He hastened his footsteps and crossed to the middle of the road. The only other person in sight was a cyclist down the road who had dismounted and was examining his wheel. “Can I be of any assistance?” asked Tab. The woman started and turned. “Miss Ardfern!” he said in astonishment. For a second she seemed uncomfortable and then with a quick smile: “It is Mr. Tab! Please forgive the familiarity, I cannot remember your other name.” “Don’t try,” he said, taking the jack from her hands, “but if you are very anxious to remember, I am called Holland.” She said nothing whilst he was raising the car. When he was knocking the torn wheel free, she said: “I am out rather late, I have been to a party.”