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into files. He said: "That ain't Mrs. Norton's list."
    "How do you know?" Gamadge studied it irritably. "There are letters of hers here, and one of them's to Melbourne, I bet anything it is."
    "This list ain't in the Honourable Norton's writing."
    "You decided that after viewing it with the naked eye?"
    "No; you viewed it with the naked eye and decided that it was."
    During this colloquy Clara stood dejected. Gamadge skated to her across reaches of slippery correspondence, and clasped her in his arms. "It was sweet of you, my darling. You ought not to have bothered with the things at all. You ought to have been out having some fun."
    "I like it at home." Clara had been a principal in a murder case, not long before, and was still shy of society.
    "I ought to take you out more myself. We could have gone south and played some golf, but Colby's tied me up to a brute of a case. You and Harold have to help me solve it."
    They sat down on the chesterfield sofa. Theodore, coming in with hot water, remarked: "Mis' Gamadge and Harold, they're young; can't expect 'em always to think old."
    Harold's rage was very great. He said: "You keep your condescension to yourself. I know what I'm doing."
    Gamadge winked at him behind his wife's shoulder. Harold had strict orders to allow her to assist in the laboratory and, if necessary, to wreck it; but she had not wrecked it, and really did assist.
    "What's this case Mr. Colby is making you work on?"
    "Before I tell you what it is I want you both to listen to a strange story. I have a lot of notes Colby prepared for me, and some newspaper clippings. But first I want my tea."
    He disposed of it in large swallows, punctuating them with bites of muffin. Harold went downstairs and returned with two notebooks; one, his own, considerably battered; the other new.
    "Mrs. Gamadge can practise her shorthand," he said.
    "I can try to." She accepted the notebook and a pencil. "Thank you, Harold, but I'll never learn how."
    "Yes, you will."
    He sat down facing them. "All set?" inquired Gamadge, through muffin. He swallowed, put down his cup, wiped his fingers on a doily, and got a sheaf of typed pages and a bunch of newspaper clippings out of his pocket. "Ever hear of the Gregson Case?"
    There was a pause. Harold said: "You mean the Gregson murder case? Certainly I have."
    "I have too," said Clara. "Everybody heard of it. It was only a couple of years ago."
    "Two years last June. You're right," agreed Gamadge, "everybody heard of it. Our friend Colby lives in Bellfield, you know, and he knew Gregson slightly, and he met Mrs. Gregson once before the trial. Now he's taken her under his wing."
    Harold stared. "I thought nobody knew where she was, nobody at all."
    "Colby does, I do, and soon you and Clara will. Colby, I must explain, although he lives in Bellfield, isn't a native; he bought a place on the outskirts, and he's a country gentleman— when he isn't dealing in real estate. He commutes."
    "I like him ever so much," said Clara.
    "He attended the Gregson trial through some pull or other, and decided that it was a complete miscarriage of justice; not her being acquitted, you know; her having been brought to trial at all. Many people thought the acquittal was the miscarriage of justice; and, the fact is that she got off by the skin of her teeth. I verily believe that in Scotland the verdict would have been 'not proven,' and that in England the judge would have looked very pinched under his wig. But the jury had gazed long upon Mrs. Gregson, and heard her speak; and it took them forty-five minutes to come back and say 'not guilty.'
    "As a matter of fact, it's a case that has kept the experts guessing ever since; and I'm supposed to solve it: alone, unaided (unless you and Harold aid me), and with no material to work on but Colby's notes."
    "Who wants you to solve it?" asked Clara. "Mr. Colby?"
    "Mrs. Gregson. I met her this afternoon."
    "You did?" Harold was impressed. "What's she like?"
    "She's like a