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Rh as that of lady's maid, a woman of whose past record and references she had not satisfied herself.

Leaving the problem for future meditation, Odell walked softly along the hall and paused before Randall Chalmers's door. From behind it there came to him the raucous voice of the parrot raised once more in the same whimpering plaint which Taylor had heard: "Hot. It burns."

He knocked upon the door.

"Come in," a whining voice called irascibly; and the detective entered.

The bed was empty but upon the couch was curled a hunchbacked figure clad in a grotesquely patterned bathrobe. Odell was conscious of a pair of flashing black eyes staring at him from behind a disordered shock of long dark hair, and of thin lips drawn into an indescribable leer. Yet the detective's tones were curiously gentle when he spoke.

"Sorry to intrude upon you, Mr. Chalmers; but I know you'll help me if you can, and when I tire you just tell me to go away. I'm Odell."

He had struck the right note, and his primary object was achieved; for the boy pulled himself up on his pillows with an air of suddenly awakened interest and pushed the hair back from his eyes.

"And what makes you think I can help you?" he demanded bruskly but with the habitual whine temporarily banished from his tones.

"Well, for one thing, you certainly hit the nail on the head last night at dinner, you know." Odell's smile robbed the words of any offensive significance. "Your family were laboring under what we might call a hunch, I suppose; but