“It doesn’t matter much whom you suspect to-day, Millicent, it will be somebody else to-morrow! Aren’t you about due to suspect me again?” “You! oh, Phyllis, don’t remind me of the foolish things I said, when I was hysterical and almost crazy! You know how you’d feel if Louis had been killed! You’d suspect anybody!” “All right, Millicent, I’ll forget it. But I don’t believe for one minute that Philip Barry is the guilty man.” “You don’t! Why, Phyllis, I thought you did!” “Oh, I don’t know what I think,” and Phyllis broke down and sobbed. “There, there, dear child,” Millicent soothed her. “Don’t cry. You’re all worried to pieces. Now, let’s get the Wise man, and then you shift all care and anxiety on to him.” “But, Millicent, suppose he should prove it to be Phil!” “If it is Phil, he ought to be shown up. We can’t stop now, for sentiment or preference. We must go ahead and prove positively who is the criminal.” When Millicent took the tone of an avenging justice, she was almost humorous, so ill did the role fit her. But she was in earnest, and she immediately set to work to engage the services of Pennington Wise. Her efforts were vain, however, as the detective politely informed her that his press of business would not permit him to take on another case at present. Greatly disappointed, she told Phyllis, who at once told Ivy Hayes, over the telephone, of her defeat. “Huh,” said the young woman, “won’t come, won’t he? Well, I guess he will. Expect him this evening, to talk over the preliminaries.” For the sanguine Ivy felt sure her childhood friend could somehow persuade the great detective to meet the engagement she had just committed him to. “Zizi,” Miss Hayes later remarked, to her friend, “You just simply got to take on the Gleason case. You hear me?” “Hear you perfectly,” Zizi’s engaging little voice replied. “But——” “No buts. You just do it. Why, Ziz, it’s all mixed up with friends of mine. And say, dearie, I want you to do it for old times’ sake.” “But, Ivy, truly——” “Truly you will? All right, Ziz. You make Penny Wise stand around—you fix it somehow—and you send him or go yourself to the Lindsay home this evening at eight o’clock. Love and kisses. Your own Ivy.” Ivy hung up the receiver, satisfied that if her friend didn’t or couldn’t meet her wishes, she would call her up and tell her so. Not hearing from Zizi, Ivy concluded all was going well. And it was. Zizi, the wonderful little assistant of the great detective, coaxed and finally persuaded him to take the case, assuring him that she, herself, would do most of the work. She put it on the grounds of a personal favor to herself, and as this was so unusual a condition as to be almost unique, Pennington Wise gave in. And so, promptly at eight, he presented himself at the Lindsays’ and was received with welcome.