Mr. Max was panting along quite ten feet behind. Over her shoulder the girl noted this; she turned her questioning eyes on Magee; he felt that his moment had come.
"I don't know how to begin," muttered the novelist whose puppets' speeches had always been so apt. "Last night you sent me on a sort of—quest for the golden fleece. I didn't know who had been fleeced, or what the idea was. But I fared forth, as they say. I got it for you—"
The eyes of the girl glowed happily. She was beaming.
"I'm so glad," she said. "But why—why didn't you give it to me last night? It would have meant so much if you had."
"That," replied Mr. Magee, "is what I'm coming to—very reluctantly. Did you note any spirit of caution in the fellow who set forth on your quest, and dropped over the balcony rail? You did not. I waited on the porch and saw Max tap the safe. I saw him and Cargan come out. I waited for them. Just as I was about to jump on them, somebody—the man with the seventh key, I guess—did it for me. There was a scuffle. I
