“I’ve won,” said Jimmie Dale, with ominous softness.  “I’ve won!”

He was standing beside the rosewood desk, and he reached for the phone.  Carruthers would be at home now—­he called Carruthers there.  After a moment or two he got the connection.

“This is Jimmie, Carruthers,” he said.  “Yes, I got it.  Thanks. . . .  Yes. . . .  Listen.  I want you to get Inspector Clayton, and bring him up here at once. . . .  What?  No, no—­no! . . .  How? . . .  Why—­er—­tell him you’re going to run a full page of him in the Sunday edition, and you want him to sit for a sketch.  He’d go anywhere for that. . . .  Yes. . . .  Half an hour. . . .  Yes. . . .  Good-bye.”

Jimmie Dale hung up the receiver; and, hastily now, began to write upon a pad that lay before him on the desk.  The minutes passed.  As he wrote, he scored out words and lines here and there, substituting others.  At the end he had covered three large pages with, to any one but himself, an indecipherable scrawl.  These he shoved aside now, and, very carefully, very legibly, made a copy on fresh sheets.  As he finished, he heard a car draw up in front of the house.  Jimmie Dale folded the copied sheets neatly, tucked them in his pocket, lighted a cigarette, and was lolling lazily in his chair as Jason announced:  “Mr. Carruthers, sir, and another gentleman to see you.”

“Show them up, Jason,” instructed Jimmie Dale.

Jimmie Dale rose from his chair as they came in.  Jason, well-trained servant, closed the door behind them.

“Hello, Carruthers; hello, inspector,” said Jimmie Dale pleasantly, and waved them to seats.  “Take this chair, Carruthers.”  He motioned to one at his elbow.  “Glad to see you, inspector—­try that one in front of the desk, you’ll find it comfortable.”

Carruthers, trying to catch Jimmie Dale’s eye for some sort of a cue, and, failing, sat down.  Inspector Clayton stared at Jimmie Dale.

“Oh, it’s you, eh?” His eyes roved around the room, fastened for an instant on some of Jimmie Dale’s work on an easel, came back finally to Jimmie Dale—­and he plumped himself down in the chair indicated.  “Thought you was more’n a cub reporter,” he remarked, with a grin.  “You were too slick with your pencil.  Pretty fine studio you got here.  Carruthers says you’re going to draw me.”

Jimmie Dale smiled—­not pleasantly—­and leaned suddenly over the desk.

“Yes,” he said slowly, a grim intonation in his voice, “going to draw you—­true to life.”

With an exclamation, Clayton slued around in his chair, half rose, and his shifty eyes, small and cunning, bored into Jimmie Dale’s face.

“What d’ye mean by that?” he snapped out