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8 jweper air of nonchalance. It would serve to annoy the altruistic and opti mistic Mr. Hazlitt. And the girl was distinctly good looking. "And my part in the arrange ments ?" McDevitt paused and Kip. linger filled in the tentative silence. "Is simply to walk ahead of me now and give her every opportunity to accost you. She'll want to know the address of a maiden aunt in Brooklyn or the way to the nearest tube terminal or tome - ucn information- The crowd will jostle her against you and she will exclaim at the annoyance. She'll have your watch, stickpin and sundry other trinkets be fore she says good-by. Then I happen along and give her a chance to explain. Are you game?" McDevitt nodded and strode briskly ahead. His heart pounded with posi tively amateurish trepidation. He seemed to hear it beating above the scuffling of hundreds of feet on the cement and the shrieking of newsboys anent the allied offensive and the Staunton murder. The head wind "blew the flexible rim of the girl's wide white hat low into her eyes, and glancing covertly at her he could see only the tip of a retrousse nose and very determined lips and chin outlined against a background of white fur. A trim fitting suit of blue serge, an enor mous muff and tiny Russian boots com pleted "her attire. She turned a casual glance upon McDevitt and he noted that her cheeks had been buffeted to a very vivid pink, and that her eyes were very large and very dark. Strands of early golden hair whipped a.bout her white forehead and the tiniest Crown appeared between tier delicate dark eyebrows as site brushed them back with one white gloved hand. Anon she stole other glances at McDevitt's lean profile! and he found himself stirred with a vague re gret that Fresno Fannie could not be all she seemed, and that he should be a will ing volunteer m the law's league against her. He graduated his gait to her short, quick steps, and quite ostentatiously drew out and consulted a Jeweled watch. The light from a department store win dow caught the inlaid diamonds in a thousand dazzling scintillations. Quite - as deliberately, and staring straight ahead, he returned the timepiece to his pocket. A moment later Fresno Fannie Hallo ran was speaking. "I trust that you will pardon my pre sumption," she besan in a low, musical voice, "but you have the appearance of being indigenous to our surroundings. 1 am not. Could you tell me the way to the Herald Building? I promised to meet my brother there and go on down town with him. He has worked here for a number of years, and I am visiting him." ."Certainly." replied McDevitt. lifting his hat punctiliously. "In fact I was of a mind to stroll down that way myself. Shall I call a taxi?" The girl shook her head in smiling ne gation. "Not unless It's awfully far." she said. "I am used to walking, and even walking here is such a novelty." "Five blocks," responded McDevitt. "We'll walk." : The eyes she turned uopn him were wide, dark and as ingenuous as those of child. She laughed with youthful abandon at McDevitt's quizzical utter ances, and the parted Hps revealed large white, even teeth. Inscrutable shadows came and went in the violet depths of her eyes, and she had an appealing way of shrinking half unconsciously Into the protection of one's arm as the elevated trains roared by. "I Just hate them," she confided with a merry gurgle; "positively every time one goes by I have an idea that I am be ing run over." The crowd Jostled her slender form against him time and again, and the wind blew the trailing ends of her furs into his face. Whenever it happened she would murmur apologies, and the tiny crease would appear between the eye brows. Then -the next moment, in re- THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, JULY 30, 1916. and shrunk back you mean?" ehe trembled, and her sponse to some cryptic utterance of Mc Devitt's, her whole countenance would light up in one of her glorious smile. McDevitt wished that she was what she had represented herself to be a very pretty and very guileless girl from the hinterland, on her first visit to the me tropolis, very frankly amazed and inter ested by everything she saw. For Fan nie was pretty. And her features were too fine and her laugh too merry and her eyes too wide and innocent to be wasted on the person of a clever female crook. They were entering upon the square when Kiplinger sauntered up. "I think the old man's awfully lonesome for you at headquarters, Fannie." he suggested. "Suppose you cheer him up by an in formal call." The girl gasped against McDevitt. "What what do asked, but her lips tones carried no conviction of outraged innocence. "Approximately what I have said," responded the detective, smiling slightly. He laid a detaining hand upon the girl's arm. 'Td suggest, however, that you re turn to the gentleman all those pretty souvenirs." he coaxed. "The matron will get them anyhow." She turned wide, tear-filled eyes in tdignantly upon McDevitt. "Please tell him," she choked, "to stop annoying me." McDevitt's flaccid muscles grew tense, and he was suddenly conscious of a great desire to smash Kiplinger upon his lean, leering mouth. She couldn't be other than she seemed. And she was entreat ing his protection. But the Impulse passed. Kiplinger was . speaking. "No use stalling. Fannie," he said crisply. "it might work in Frisco, but It's obsolete in these Parts." He Indicated the girl's muff. "Shell out!" he commanded peremptorily, "and let's be leaving." Reluctantly the girl's hand stole out of the muff. She passed something to Kiplinger. He glanced at it, laughed shortly, and handed it to McDevitt. It was a watch, and from it dangled Mc Devitt's jade 'varsity fob. He turned into the crowd with his "pinch." "Nice work," he said tersely. "You'll do." The girl turned and glanced over her shoulder. Her piquant litUe face was set in hard lines now. and the soft red lips sagged cynically at the corners. "I didn't know," she remarked caustically, "that professional 'stool pigeons' used such ex cellent English, or wore that kind of clothes." Then the shifting, shuffling throng swallowed them up. McDevitt passed his hands wearily over his aching eyes, and stared for sev eral minutes toward the exact vortex of humanity that had enveloped Kiplinger and the girl with the cynical twist to her red lips. Then he sauntered on. There had been a thrill, no doubt. But it tended to hurt rather than to exhilarate. And McDevitt. who had laughed at "Mick" Murphy's methods and scorod his ignorance of psychology, was in no wise exultant. In fact, he was rather ashamed. A stranger stepped out of a doorway. He laid a light hand upon McDevitt's arm. "You're coming down to the cen tral office," he remarked dispassionately McDevitt started. It was not an invi tation. Neither was it a question. It was merely stated as a fact "Why?" said McDevitt. "We don't like the looks of your friends. Getting intimate with Fresno i:"r there "Mick" SsiV Murphy, J-T3 office. a plain hunting case, with the initials H. H. S. worked In scroll. Some one behind him muttered and then broke out in an ejaculation. He pounced upon the watch. A spring snapped and the case flew open. It was not a watch at all. Instead, there reposed within a folded tissue paper. The man spread it out. Upon it It wa as large as a handkerchief were numer ous parallel lines in red, with blue dots and dashes and asterisks. "The Cavlte plans! said the stranger knowinrlv. "Mick" Murphy stared through the cigar i smoke at McDevitt and grunted. "And omumon s lake watch," he added. "I seen him with It." McDevitt licked his stiff whlte llpa and strove to speak naturally. 'Tve got an airtight alibi," he said. T wu at ' the club. There's a frameup somewhere. " A girl '' ' : The men laughed. Murphy guffawed coarsely. His heavy red, lowering face was close to McDevitt's. "Ye've got an alibi, have yuh?" he sneered. "Well, -you've got the plans, too, for which your gang croaked Staunton." He heard Murphy explaining to the.' others as they led htm out. "It certain ly isn't money that mixed him in. He - c got plenty o' 'jack.' I seen It happen Te- : fore, too. Just crazy for excitement A man'il do most anything when he gets ' tired o' girls and cocktails, and don't ' have to rustie fer a livin'." And thus, perhaps, should the tale end. You'd rather guess, wouldn't you, - ' whether McDevitt was Innocent or guilty? You'd rather wonder whether " Police vigilance, relaxed through hie ' "capture," had- enabled the other to escape. But the editors say "happy end ings." And under-protest we proceed. McDevitt sought to telephone that night But his captors refused to permit it. He stormed and raved and pleaded but they were adamant He didn't eat -breakfast. He had lost his appetite. There was a different crowd in the chief s office the next morning. A girl In -white furs was there. So were Hazlitt ' and Borroughs and Murphy. They stared " long at McDevitt. and then Hazlitt . laughed. So did Borroughs and vr The girl in the white furs with the ap pealing violet eyes started to laugh, but beholding McDWt, wan and pallid and hollow eyed, she desisted. int. "So here's the conspirator ' said Haz- Fannie and "Flash" Hargreave on street corners always invites a visit to the chief." TJacomprehendingly McDevitt went. Down in the oak paneled chiefs office he sat in a leather chair and stared hard through the gray haze of cigar smoke. There were everal other men" present One or two were in uniform. Plain clothe predominated. "They passed 'im something" ua tne man who brought aown. "He's got it on him." AKtheir request he emptied pocketa. He laid his watch on uuer uie white rays of tungsten. The, Jade fob glowed malevolently up at him. But no diamonds scintillated beneath the arcttng white rays of the tungsten. It wu not hi watch I Instead, it was him his the a The volunteer Holmes." amended Borroughs. And then they both laughed The Staunton murder!" gasped Mc Devitt. "It took place, all right." said Mur phy dryly, "only the Jap who turned the trick lost his nerve and committed hara kiri. We-we borrowed Staunton's case It served a purpose." , U coIlapsed a chair prof- " fered by Hazlitt "And Fresno Fannie- - he demanded. "The detective - "My niece. Edith Hazlitt." said his COmpanl- "She maintain, that the -uper-sophisticatod New Yorker il from Omaha, and offered to prov. It - "We've been telling Murphy what you think of central office methods," addM -'"---,g,e And again they laughed." A slow flush " : ' C3 at Miss Hazlitt He trZZ ' ' the Plquant ' ce w tDh hair- Hl 're -ought S elr enchaT ghts and m. T McDevUt csed to he a nanthrope. He even forgot to be ,n-' dignant it would have been a pretty crude piece of wwk lf a,Iut AnJ Borroughs and Murphy had been impli cated. But the girl, somehow, made it different ICopyright, -1916, hy J. Kecfey Oermany claims to lead the world in the use of machinery directly driven br electric" mote