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with a clock under my arm, going from door to door of the jewelers in the attempt to sell it for cash. It was even I who in a dark room taken by the hour in a questionable hotel showed a tiny, eight-by-ten Rembrandt, which I now think must certainly have been stolen, to various rat-faced men who came by appointment to examine it, while Mr. Sheer in the closet waited for results.
    Of course, if I were to remain valuable to Mr. Sheer, I would have to believe that the checks were good, that the Rembrandt was genuine and legally acquired, that if the story I was telling Bierman were false, nevertheless the story that lay hidden behind it was true and not discreditable. And here lay Mr. Sheer’s dilemma: if he kept me in a state of innocence (which was difficult since I handled all his business), I might blunder on one of my errands and get him into trouble; but if he allowed me to be corrupted by knowledge of his affairs, I would lose that earnest sincerity that could never be properly simulated. The dilemma was insoluble, as he discovered later. Meanwhile, his brain was kept working overtime, for each of his deceptions had to be double-barreled, one set of lies for his creditors and one for me.
    Looking back, I see that, in the Bierman case, the Carew story was the lie intended for domestic consumption. Surely Carew must have been fictional, for when the finale of the diamond business took place, there was no Carew in it at all, and, in the years I have known Mr. Sheer since, I have never seen or heard of that playboy, as Mr. Sheer always called him, who figured so largely in my life that summer. Neither have I ever seen the name in Winchell’s column.
    I returned to the gallery from Bierman’s store, ready for action. The thing to do, I said, was to find Carew at once. Mr. Sheer, it seemed to me, had been strangely apathetic about looking for him. He had heard a rumor, he finally murmured, that the girl Carew was keeping had been seen in Atlantic City.
    “We must look for him in Atlantic City then,” I announced energetically. “What hotel do you think he would be staying at?”
    Mr. Sheer named a hotel and I called it by long distance. There was no Thomas Carew registered there. I called a second and a third, but there was still no Carew. Mr. Sheer began to find the search enlivening, and together we called all the hotels in Atlantic City, but it was quite fruitless. Then I remembered having read in detective stories that people who went to seaside resorts with girls would often register under false names but use their own initials so that the name on the register would match the luggage. I suggested that we try asking for anybody whose initials were “T. C.” Mr. Sheer was enthusiastic about the idea, and we called all the hotels over again, but either the clerks would not co-operate with us or the people we got on the wire were indignant when Mr. Sheer would open the conversation by asking if they were Tom Carew. Mr. Sheer was positive, however, that none of the men he talked to had Carew’s voice. We passed a whole afternoon this way, an afternoon we both enjoyed, I because I felt myself hot on the trail of the fugitive, like a particularly bright and wily bloodhound, and Mr. Sheer, no doubt, because he had a taste for practical jokes, and found this search for an imaginary Carew a pleasant diversion from his troubles.
    But his mood changed when I remarked that though we had not been able to find Carew, our idea was still good, and we might now try looking for the girl. What was her name, I asked. Mr. Sheer did not reply directly.
    “You know, Miss Sargent,” he said, getting up, “I’ve just been thinking that we’re wasting our time this way. The best thing to do is to get a detective on it. I think I’ll just run around and talk to O’Bannon. If Bierman calls tell him I’ll call him back in an hour.”
    He took up his hat, paused at the door as he always did to look up and down the corridor, and went on