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from the workshop. I left, going to the studio, and found Miss Quon and Miss Dickey and Mr. Kiernan there.'
    'And before long I was there. Then no one saw you unmasked. When did you put the gloves on?'
    'The last thing. Just before I entered the studio.'
    'Then you may have left prints. I know, you didn't know there was going to be a murder. You left your clothes in the dressing room'Are you sure you got everything when you left?'
    'Yes. I am not a complete ass.'
    I let that by. 'Why didn't you leave the gloves in the elevator with the costume?'
    'Because they hadn't come with it, and I thought it better to take them.'
    'That private elevator is at the rear of the hall downstairs. Did anyone see you leaving it or passing through the hall?'
    'No. The hall was empty.'
    'How did you get home'Taxi?'
    'No. Fritz didn't expect me until six or later. I walked to the public library, spent some two hours there, and then took a cab.'
    I pursed my lips and shook my head to indicate sympathy. That was his longest and hardest tramp since Montenegro. Over a mile. Fighting his way through the blizzard, in terror of the law on his tail. But all the return I got for my look of sympathy was a scowl, so I let loose. I laughed. I put my head back and let it come. I had wanted to ever since I had learned he was Santa Claus, but had been too busy thinking. It was bottled up in me, and I let it out, good. I was about to taper off to a cackle when he exploded.
    'Confound it,' he bellowed, 'marry and be damned!'
    That was dangerous. That attitude could easily get us onto the aspect he had sent me up to my room to think over alone, and if we got started on that anything could happen. It called for tact.
    'I beg your pardon,' I said. 'Something caught in my throat. Do you want to describe the situation, or do you want me to?'
    'I would like to hear you try,' he said grimly.
    'Yes, sir. I suspect that the only thing to do is to phone Inspector Cramer right now and invite him to come and have a chat, and when he comes open the bag. That will-'
    'No. I will not do that.'
    'Then, next best, I go to him and spill it there. Of course-'
    'No.' He meant every word of it.
    'Okay, I'll describe it. They'll mark time on the others until they find Santa Claus. They've got to find him. If he left any prints they'll compare them with every file they've got, and sooner or later they'll get to yours. They'll cover all the stores for sales of white cotton gloves to men. They'll trace Bottweill's movements and learn that he lunched with you at Rusterman's, and you left together, and they'll trace you to Bottweill's place. Of course your going there won't prove you were Santa Claus, you might talk your way out of that, and it will account for your prints if they find some, but what about the gloves'They'll trace that sale if you give them time, and with a description of the buyer they'll find Santa Claus. You're sunk.'
    I had never seen his face blacker.
    'If you sit tight till they find him,' I argued, 'it will be quite a nuisance. Cramer has been itching for years to lock you up, and any judge would commit you as a material witness who had run out. Whereas if you call Cramer now, and I mean now, and invite him to come and have some beer, while it will still be a nuisance, it will be bearable. Of course he'll want to know why you went there and played Santa Claus, but you can tell him anything you please. Tell him you bet me a hundred bucks, or what the hell, make it a grand, that you could be in a room with me for ten minutes and I wouldn't recognize you. I'll be glad to cooperate.'
    I leaned forward. 'Another thing. If you wait till they find you, you won't dare tell them that Bottweill took a drink from that bottle shortly after two o'clock and it didn't hurt him. If you told about that after they dug you up, they could book you for withholding evidence, and they probably would, and make it stick. If you get Cramer here now and tell him he'll appreciate it, though