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154 else seemed equally determined to prevent that entrance.

But the combat must have been a brief one, for a moment later the door was flung open, followed by the undignified catapulting into the room of the butler in the crimson-rambler apparel. The cause of that unceremonious entrance followed close behind. I could make out the burly shoulders of a very irate young man in a check tweed suit which fitted him as though he had been melted and poured into it. I could also see, even in that uncertain light, that he wore a necktie as bright in hue as the crimson-rambler knickerbockers which he had so recently outraged. But before I could preen about for a better view of him he strode in across the room and elbowed both Ezra Bartlett and Theobald Scripps from their places beside that four-poster.

"Where's Claire?" he peremptorily and somewhat breathlessly demanded.

It was plain that he was a stranger to them all. But he was no stranger to me, from the moment I first heard that rich brogue. I knew it was Pinky McClone speaking. And the mystery of Pinky McClone's presence in that house brought me sitting straight up between my crested sheets.

"Where's Claire?" he repeated, in a voice which