We sat for several moments, in silence, waiting.

I picked up an evening paper. I had already read it, but I looked
through it again, to kill time, even reading the society notes.

"By Jove, Garrick," I exclaimed as my eye travelled over the page,
"newspaper pictures don't usually flatter people, but just look at
those eyes! You can fairly see them dance even in the halftone."

The picture which had attracted my attention was of Miss Violet
Winslow, an heiress to a moderate fortune, a debutante well known
in New York and at Tuxedo that season.

As Garrick looked over my shoulder his mere tone set me wondering.

"She IS stunning," he agreed simply. "Half the younger set are
crazy over her."

The buzzer on his door recalled us to the case in hand.

One of our visitors was a sandy-haired, red-mustached, stocky man,
with everything but the name detective written on him from his
face to his mannerisms.

He was accompanied by an athletically inclined, fresh-faced young
fellow, whose clothes proclaimed him to be practically the last
word in imported goods from London.

I was not surprised at reading the name of James McBirney on the
detective's card, underneath which was the title of the Automobile