“Trust us,” assured Craig.  “Now, Miss Kendall, if you will give us the pleasure of lunching with you at the Montmartre again, I think we may be able to get the Judge just the sort of open and shut evidence he is after.”

“I shall be glad to do it.  I’m ready now.”

Kennedy glanced at his watch.  “It’s a little early yet.  If we take a taxicab we shall have plenty of time to stop at the laboratory on our way.”

Arriving at the laboratory, he went to a drawer, from which he took a little box which contained a long tube, and carefully placed it in the breast pocket of his coat.  Then from a chest of tools he drew several steel sections that apparently fitted together, and began stuffing the parts into various pockets.

“Here, Walter,” he said, “these make me bulge like a yeggman with his outfit under his coat.  Can’t you help me with some of these parts?”

I jammed several into various pockets—­heavy pieces of metal—­and we were ready.

Our previous visits to the Montmartre seemed to have given us the entree and the precaution of telephoning made it even easier.  Indeed, it appeared that about all that was necessary there was to be known and to be thought “right.”  We carefully avoided the office, where the stenographer might possibly have recognized Clare, and entered the elevator.

“Is Dr. Harris in?” asked Craig, both by way of getting information and showing that he was no stranger.

The black elevator boy gave an ivory grin.  “No, sah.  He done gone on one o’ them things.”

Another question developed the fact that whenever Harris was away it was generally assumed that he was tinting the metropolis vermilion from the Battery to the Bronx.

We passed down the hall to the smaller of the two dining-rooms, and as we went by the larger we could see the door open and that no one was there.

We had ordered and the waiter had scarcely shut the door before Kennedy had divested himself of the heavy steel sections which he had hidden in his pockets.  I did the same.

With a quick glance he seemed to be observing just how the furniture was placed.  The smaller dining-room was quite as elaborately furnished as the larger, though of course the furniture was more crowded.

He moved the settee and was on his knees in a corner.  “Let me see,” he considered.  “There was nothing on this side of the larger room except the divan in the centre.”

As nearly as he could judge he was measuring off just where the divan stood on the opposite side of the wall, and its height.  Then he began fitting together the pieces of steel.  As he added one to another, I saw that they made a sectional brace and bit of his own design, a long, vicious-looking affair such as a burglar might have been glad to own.

Carefully he started to bore through the plaster and lath back of the settee and to one side of where the divan must have been.  He was making just as small a hole as possible, now and then stopping to listen.