"At the Thornhills'?" It might be handy to have her there; but she shook her head, looking a little self-conscious. "I'm taking that spare room at Sarah Capehart's. Skeet wanted me, and I have an invitation from Laura Bowman; but if--well, seeing that this investigation is going to cover all that neighborhood, I thought I'd rather be with Sarah." The level-headed little thing! Pete and I had the pleasure of taking her out to her home where she had her packing to attend to. On the way she spoke of an engagement with Cummings for the theater Saturday night. "And instead, I suppose I shall be at the carnival ball. Shall I tell him that in my note, Mr. Boyne? Is it all right to let him know?" "It's all right," I assented. "You can bet Cummings is due down there as soon as Worth shows up; and that must be soon, now." "Yes," Barbara agreed. Her face clouded a little. "You noticed in Skeet's letter that they're expecting Ina to-morrow." Poor child--she couldn't get away from it. I patted the hand I had taken to say good-by and assured her again, "Worth Gilbert hasn't been in the south. I wonder at you, Barbara. You're so clear headed about everything else--don't you see that that would be impossible?" Then I drove back to my office, to find lying on my desk a telegram from the young man, dated at Los Angeles, requesting me to meet him at Santa Ysobel the following evening! CHAPTER XVII CLEANSING FIRES Wednesday evening I pulled into a different Santa Ysobel: lanterns strung across between the buildings, bunting and branches of bloom everywhere, streets alive with people milling around, and cars piled high with decorative material, crowded with the decorators. The carnival of blossoms was only three days ahead. At Bill Capehart's garage they told me Barbara was out somewhere with the crowd; and a few minutes later on Main Street, I met her in a Ford truck. Skeet Thornhill was at the wheel, adding to the general risk of life and limb on Santa Ysobel streets, carrying a half a dozen or more other young things tucked away behind. Both girls shouted at me; they were going somewhere for something and would see me later. Getting down toward the Gilbert place, just beyond the corner, I flushed from the shadows of the pepper trees a bird I knew to be one of Dykeman's operatives. Watching his carefully careless progress on past the Gilbert lawn, then the Vandeman grounds, my eye was led to a pair who approached across the green from the direction of the bungalow. No mistaking the woman; even at this distance, height and the clean sweep of her walk, told me that this was the bride, Ina Vandeman. And the man strolling beside her--had he come with her from the house, or joined her on the cross-cut path?--could that be Worth Gilbert?