remember the auburn-haired leading lady in the 'Follies'--the
girl who sings that song about 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary'? Her
stage name, you know, is Phoebe La Neige. Well, if it's she who
is concerned in this case I don't think she'll be playing
to-night. Let's inquire at the box-office."

She wasn't playing, but just what it had to do with anything in
particular I couldn't see, and I said as much.

"Why, Walter, you'd never do as a detective. You lack intuition.
Sometimes I think I haven't quite enough of it, either. Why
didn't I think of that sooner? Don't you know she is the wife of
Adolphus Hesse, the most inveterate gambler in stocks in the
System? Why, I had only to put two and two together and the whole
thing flashed on me in an instant. Isn't it a good hypothesis
that she is the red-haired woman in the case, the tool of the
System in which her husband is so heavily involved? I'll have to
add her to my list of suspects."

"Why, you don't think she did the shooting?" I asked, half
hoping, I must admit, for an assenting nod from him.

"Well," he answered dryly, "one shouldn't let any preconceived
hypothesis stand between him and the truth. I've made a guess at
the whole thing already. It may or it may not be right. Anyhow
she will fit into it. And if it's not right, I've got to be
prepared to make a new guess, that's all."

When we reached the laboratory on our return, the inspector's man
Riley was there, waiting impatiently for Kennedy.