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watching two men from headquarters search Rathbone’s office when I arrived there. After I showed them the telegram the detectives went back to their examination.
    â€œWhat’s the significance of that list?” Zumwalt asked.
    â€œIt shows that there’s no sense to this thing the way it now stands,” I said. “That Gladstone bag was packed to be carried. Checking it was all wrong—it wasn’t even locked. And nobody ever checks Gladstone bags filled with toilet articles—so checking it for a stall would have been the bunk! Maybe he checked it as an afterthought—to get rid of it when he found he wasn’t going to need it. But what could have made it unnecessary to him? Don’t forget that it’s apparently the same bag that he carried into the Golden Gate Trust Company vault when he went for the bonds. Damned if I can dope it!”
    â€œHere’s something else for you to dope,” one of the city detectives said, getting up from his examination of the desk and holding out a sheet of paper. “I found it behind one of the drawers, where it had slipped down.”
    It was a letter, written with blue ink in a firm, angular and unmistakably feminine hand on heavy white note paper.
    Dear Dannyboy:
    If it isn’t too late I’ve changed my mind about going. If you can wait another day, until Tuesday, I’ll go. Call me up as soon as you get this, and if you still want me I’ll pick you up in the roadster at the Shattuck Avenue station Tuesday afternoon.
    More than ever yours,
    â€œBoots.”
    It was dated the twenty-sixth—the Sunday before Rathbone had disappeared.
    â€œThat’s the thing that made him lay over another day, and made him change his plans,” one of the police detectives said. “I guess we better run over to Berkeley and see what we can find at the Shattuck Avenue station.”
    â€œMr. Zumwalt,” I said, when he and I were alone in his office, “how about this stenog of yours?”
    He bounced up from his chair and his face turned red.
    â€œWhat about her?”
    â€œIs she— How friendly was she with Rathbone?”
    â€œMiss Narbett,” he said heavily, deliberately, as if to be sure that I caught every syllable, “is to be married to me as soon as my wife gets her divorce. That is why I canceled the order to sell my house. Now would you mind telling me just why you asked?”
    â€œJust a random guess!” I lied, trying to soothe him. “I don’t want to overlook any bets. But now that’s out of the way.”
    â€œIt is,” he was still talking deliberately, “and it seems to me that most of your guesses have been random ones. If you will have your office send me a bill for your services to date, I think I can dispense with your help.”
    â€œJust as you say. But you’ll have to pay for a full day today; so, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep on working at it until night.”
    â€œVery well! But I am busy, and you needn’t bother about coming in with any reports.”
    â€œAll right,” I said, and bowed myself out of the office, but not out of the job.
    That letter from “Boots” had not been in the desk when I searched it. I had taken every drawer out and even tilted the desk to look under it. The letter was a plant!
    And then again: maybe Zumwalt had given me the air because he was dissatisfied with the work I had done and peeved at my question about the girl—and maybe not.
    Suppose (I thought, walking up Market Street, bumping shoulders and stepping on people’s feet) the two partners were in this thing together. One of them would have to be the goat, and that part had fallen to Rathbone. Zumwalt’s manner and actions since his partner’s disappearance fit that theory well enough.
    Employing a private detective before calling in the police was a good play. In the first place it gave him the appearance of