"She's in the city, Fibs, living as somebody else." "Yep, that's so. Over on the West side, say, among the artist lady's studio gang?" "Maybe so. But she has full freedom of action and goes about as she likes. Julie also. They come here whenever they choose, though I don't think they'll come while we're here. It's a queer state of things, Calhoun. What do you make of it?" "I don't believe Vicky is disguised. Her personality is too pronounced and so is Julie's. I think some friend is caring for them. Not Ariadne Gale, of that I'm sure. But it may be Mrs. Reeves. She is very fond of Vicky and is clever enough to hide the girl all this time." "The police have searched her house--" "I know, but Mrs. Reeves and Vicky could connive a plan that would hoodwink the police, I'm pretty certain." "I'll look into that," and Stone made a note of it. "About that carving knife, Fibsy. Did the caterers take it away by mistake?" "No, sir; I 'vestergated that, an' they didn't." "That knife is an important thing, to my mind," the detective went on. "Yes, sir," eagerly agreed Fibsy. "It may yet cut the Gorgian knot! Why, Mr. Stone, the sewing lady knew that knife. She was here to lunching a few days before the moider, an' she says she always sat at the table in the dining room to eat, after Miss Van Allen got through. An' she says that knife was there, 'cos they had steak, an' she used it herself. I described the fork puffeckly, an' she reckernized it at onct." "You're a bright boy!" I exclaimed in involuntary tribute to this clever bit of work. "I'm 'ssociated with Mr. Stone," said Fibsy, with a quiet twinkle. "It was clever," agreed Stone. "I'm sure, myself, that the absence of that small carving knife means something, but I can't fit it in yet." We went up to the dining-room to look again at the carving fork, still in its place on the sideboard. I was always thrilled at a return to this room--always reminded of the awful tableau I had seen there. The long, slender fork lay in its place. Though it had been repeatedly examined and puzzled over, it had been carefully replaced. "But I can't see," I offered, "why a carving-knife should figure in the matter at all when the crime was committed with the little boning-knife." "That's why the missing carving-knife ought to be a clue," said Stone, "because its connection with the case is inexplicable. Now, where is that knife? Fibsy, where is it?" Fleming Stone's frequent appeals to the boy were often in a half-bantering tone, and yet, rather often, Terence returned an opinion or a bit of conjecture that turned Stone's cogitations in a fresh direction.