"Wait a minute," said Stone, "listen, Sam, what will you take to show me where the pin is?" "Dollars, dollars--a lot of dollars!" "Two?" and Stone drew out his wallet. "Yes, 'two, three, four--lot of dollars!" "And then you'll tell us where the pin is?" "Yes, Sam tell then--it is a sin----" "Don't sing that again. Look, here's four nice dollar bills; now where's the pin?" "Where?" Sam looked utterly blank. "Where's the pin? Nice pin, oh, pinny, pin, pin! Where's the pin? Oh, _I_ know!" "All right, where?" "Forgot! All forgot. Nice pin forgot--forgot--forgot----" "Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Lucille, "he doesn't know anything! I don't believe he really took the pin at all. He heard Agnes and Polly talking about it and he thinks he did." "Oh, yes, Sam took pin!" declared the idiot boy, himself. "Yes, Sam took pin--pinny-pin--beautiful day, beautiful day, beautiful--beautiful day!" The boy stood babbling. He was not ill-looking, and the pathos of it all made him far from ridiculous. A tall, well-formed lad, his face would have been really attractive, had the light of intelligence blessed it. But his blue eyes were vacant, his lips were not firm, and his head turned unsteadily from side to side. Yet, now and again, a gleam of cunning showed in his expression, and Fibsy, watching such moments, tried to make him speak rationally. "Think it up, Sam," he said, kindly. "There! You remember now! So you do! Where did you put the nice pin?" "In the crack of the floor! In the crack of the floor! In the----" "Yes, of course you did!" encouraged Stone. "That was a good place. Now, what floor was it? This room?" "No, oh, nony no! Not this floor, no, no, no--'nother floor." But all further effort to learn what floor was unsuccessful. Indeed, they didn't really think the boy had hidden the pin in a floor crack, or at least they could not feel sure of it. "He never had the pin at all," Lucille asserted, "he heard the others talking about it, probably they said it might be in a crack, and he remembered the idea." "Keep him on the place," Stone told them, as he prepared to go to see Bannard. "Don't let Sam get away, whatever you do." * * * * * The call on Winston Bannard was preceded by a short visit to Detective Hughes. While the lesser detective was not annoyed or offended at Stone's taking up the case, yet it was part of his professional pride to be able to tell his more distinguished colleague any new points he could get hold of. And, to-day, Hughes had received back from a local handwriting expert the letter that had been sent to Iris. "And he says," Hughes told the tale, "he says, Barlow does, that that letter is in Win Bannard's writing, but disguised!" "What!" and Stone eyed the document incredulously. "Yep, Barlow says so, and he's an expert, he is. See, those twirly y's and those extra long-looped g's are just like these here in a lot of letters of Bannard's." "Are these in Bannard's writing?"