“Why?” he replied eagerly.  “Has anything come?”

I pointed to the package.  Kennedy made a dive for it and unwrapped it.  It was a woman’s pongee automobile-coat.  He held it up to the light.  The pocket on the right-hand side was scorched and burned, and a hole was torn clean through it.  I gasped when the full significance of it dawned on me.

“How did you get it?” I exclaimed at last in surprise.

“That’s where organization comes in,” said Kennedy.  “The police at my request went over every messenger call from Parker’s office that afternoon, and traced every one of them up.  At last they found one that led to Bruce’s apartment.  None of them led to Mrs. Parker’s home.  The rest were all business calls and satisfactorily accounted for.  I reasoned that this was the one that involved the disappearance of the automobile-coat.  It was a chance worth taking, so I got Downey to call up Bruce’s valet.  The valet of course recognized Downey’s voice and suspected nothing.  Downey assumed to know all about the coat in the package received yesterday.  He asked to have it sent up here.  I see the scheme worked.”

“But, Kennedy, do you think she—­” I stopped, speechless, looking at the scorched coat.

“Nothing to say—­yet,” he replied laconically.  “But if you could tell me anything about that note Parker received I’d thank you.”

I related what our managing editor had said that morning.  Kennedy only raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.

“I had guessed something of that sort,” he said merely.  “I’m glad to find it confirmed even by hearsay evidence.  This red-haired young lady interests me.  Not a very definite description, but better than nothing at all.  I wonder who she is.  Ah, well, what do you say to a stroll down the White Way before I go to my laboratory?  I’d like a breath of air to relax my mind.”

We had got no further than the first theatre when Kennedy slapped me on the back.  “By George, Jameson, she’s an actress, of course.”

“Who is?  What’s the matter with you, Kennedy?  Are you crazy?”

“The red-haired person—­she must be an actress.  Don’t you 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.”