"I'll keep this," he said, and willy-nilly, I lost my little souvenir of Vicky Van. But, of course, if he considered it evidence, I had to give it up, and the fact of doing so, partly salved my conscience of its guilty feeling at concealing the fact of Vicky's presence in her own house just then. And, too, I said to myself, Mr. Stone is out to find her. Surely a detective of his calibre can accomplish that without help of an humble layman! So I kept my own counsel, and further search, of the next story, and later, of the basement rooms, gave no hint of Vicky's presence or departure. Indeed, I began to wonder if I had really seen her. Could she have been so clearly in my mind, that I visualized her in a moment of clairvoyance? My reason rebelled at this, for I knew I saw her, as well as I knew I was alive. She had on the same little hat in which I had last seen her. She had on no cloak, and her tailor-made street dress was of a dark cloth. I couldn't be sure how she got away, for the basement door we found bolted on the inside, but she must have warily evaded and eluded us and slipped here and there as we pursued our course through the house, and then have gone out by the front door when we were, say, on the upper floors. Returning to Vicky's boudoir, where her little writing-desk was, Fleming Stone began to run over the letters and papers therein. It was locked, but he picked the flimsy fastening and calmly took up the task with his usual quick-moving, efficient manner. I stayed with him, and the three women wandered back over the house again. He ran through letters with glancing quickness, flipped over sheafs of bills, and examined pens, ink and paper. "There's so much that's characteristic about a desk," he said, as he observed the penwiper, stamps, pin-tray, and especially the pencils. "Indeed, I feel now that I know Miss Van Allen as well, if not better than you do yourself, Mr. Calhoun." "In that case, then, you can't believe her guilty," I flashed back, for the very atmosphere of the dear little room made me more than ever Vicky's friend. "But you see," and he spoke a bit sadly, "what I know of her is the real woman. I can't be deceived by her wiles and coquetries. I see only the actual traces of her actual self." I knew what he meant, and there was some truth in it. For Vicky was a mystery, and I was not by any means sure, that she didn't hoodwink us when she chose to. Much as I liked and admired the girl, I was forced to believe she was not altogether disingenuous. And she was clever enough to hoodwink anybody. But if Stone's deductions were to be depended on, they were doubtless true evidence. "Is she guilty?" I sighed. "I can't say that, yet, but I've found nothing that absolutely precludes her guilt. On the contrary, I've found things, which if she is guilty, will go far toward proving it." This sounded a bit enigmatical, but Stone was so serious, that I grasped his general meaning and let it go at that.