The voice which came to Tara over the wire was cool and crisp: “Mr. Barrison, please.” Tara glanced compassionately toward the bedroom where his master was already in deep repose. “No, sir!” he responded, politely but firmly. “What do you mean—no? Has he gone to bed?” “Yes—please.” Tara was nothing if not deferential. “Well, get him up. I want to speak to him.” “Honorably excuse,” said Tara, with an instinctive bow to the instrument, “but—I _not_!” “You won’t call him?” “Please—I not!” The voice at the end of the wire cursed him gently, and then continued: “Well, will you take a message?” “Oh, yes, please—I thank!” The Jap hastily seized pencil and paper, and, after making sundry hieroglyphics in his own language, said good night humbly, hung up, and translated what he had noted into English. In the morning, when he carried coffee in to a refreshed but still drowsy Barrison, the message which that gentleman read was as follows: “Hon. gent. paper man say if you please call. Import.” Barrison knew that this meant Teddy Lucas in all probability, but he also knew that it was too early to catch him at the newspaper office yet. He ate breakfast and hunted through the morning papers for matters of interest. In the _Blaze_, he found a picturesque little account of the spectacular exit of Mr. and Mrs. Blankley. It was toned down, however, a good deal, Dukane’s name not being mentioned, and nothing more sensational being suggested than that “Rita the Daredevil” lost her nerve after the narrow escape which had left her in a state of collapse when the _Blaze_ representative was admitted to her presence. Her husband had urged her discontinuance of the engagement, et cetera. Barrison could not entirely understand, but he knew that the ways of newspapers were strange and devious. Later he would call up Lucas and find out more about it. It was at this point that his eye caught sight of another item on the page given over to dramatic news. It was starred in a half column, and was headed: TRAGIC AND SENSATIONAL ROMANCE OF MISS KITTY LEGAYE! Popular Actress Announces Her Engagement to Star Who Was Murdered. (Interview by Maybelle Montagu.) Miss Kitty Legaye, whose charm and talent have endeared her to thousands of the American public, is to-day that saddest of figures, a sorrowing woman bereft of the man who was to have been her husband. Alan Mortimer, whose terrible and mysterious death has stirred the entire theatrical world and baffled police headquarters, has left behind him a woman whose white face bears the stamp of ineffaceable love and endless grief.