“The Pirate’s crazy about me, isn’t she?” McKnight said to the closing door. Then he swung around and held out his hand. “By Jove,” he said, “I’ve been laying you out all day, lilies on the door-bell, black gloves, everything. If you had had the sense of a mosquito in a snow-storm, you would have telephoned me.” “I never even thought of it.” I was filled with remorse. “Upon my word, Rich, I hadn’t an idea beyond getting away from that place. If you had seen what I saw—” McKnight stopped me. “Seen it! Why, you lunatic, I’ve been digging for you all day in the ruins! I’ve lunched and dined on horrors. Give me something to rinse them down, Lollie.” He had fished the key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wading in by inches. I ducked and got it over. “The notes are gone, Rich,” I said, as quietly as I could. In spite of himself his face fell. “I—of course I expected it,” he said. “But—Mrs. Klopton said over the telephone that you had brought home a grip and I hoped—well, Lord knows we ought not to complain. You’re here, damaged, but here.” He lifted his glass. “Happy days, old man!” “If you will give me that black bottle and a teaspoon, I’ll drink that in arnica, or whatever the stuff is; Rich,—the notes were gone before the wreck!” He wheeled and stared at me, the bottle in his hand. “Lost, strayed or stolen?” he queried with forced lightness. “Stolen, although I believe the theft was incidental to something else.” Mrs. Klopton came in at that moment, with an egg-nog in her hand. She glanced at the clock, and, without addressing any one in particular, she intimated that it was time for self-respecting folks to be at home in bed. McKnight, who could never resist a fling at her back, spoke to me in a stage whisper. “Is she talking still? or again?” he asked, just before the door closed. There was a second’s indecision with the knob, then, judging discretion the better part, Mrs. Klopton went away. “Now, then,” McKnight said, settling himself in a chair beside the bed, “spit it out. Not the wreck—I know all I want about that. But the theft. I can tell you beforehand that it was a woman.” I had crawled painfully out of bed, and was in the act of pouring the egg-nog down the pipe of the washstand. I paused, with the glass in the air. “A woman!” I repeated, startled. “What makes you think that?” “You don’t know the first principles of a good detective yarn,” he said scornfully. “Of course, it was the woman in the empty house next door. You said it was brass pipes, you will remember. Well—on with the dance: let joy be unconfined.”