The Carleton Case

Puzzling a little as he walked along, he cast back in his mind to chance words that from time to time had fallen haphazard from Jack Carleton's lips, and finally, in one sudden flash of memory, he came upon the clue. "Jeanne," he said to himself, half aloud, "of course; that's who it is; Jeanne." Then, falling back unconsciously into the slang of college days, he added, "and she is a peach, too; Jack told the truth for once; no wonder he had his little affair." And finally, as he mounted the steps of the broad piazza, he spoke again. "But pretty risky fun," he muttered, "playing with fire, all right; there are some women in the world that a man wants to steer clear of, and I should put that girl down for one of them."

He rang the bell, and almost immediately there appeared in answer a butler, thin, pale, and of uncertain age, but even to Helmar's unpractised eye superlatively autocratic, hopelessly correct. He seemed, indeed, to