However, one look was enough to interest me.  I can express it only in slang.  There, framed in the little thing, was a vision of as swell a “chicken” as I have ever seen.

I whistled under my breath.

“Um!” I exclaimed shamelessly, “A peach!  Who’s your friend?”

I had never said a truer word than in my description of her, though I did not know it at the time.  She was indeed known as “Gertie the Peach” in the select circle to which she belonged.

Gertie was very attractive, though frightfully over-dressed.  But, then, no one thinks anything of that now, in New York.

Kennedy had opened the lower door and our fair visitor was coming upstairs.  Meanwhile he was deeply in thought before the “teleview.”  He made up his mind quickly, however.

“Go in there, Walter,” he said, seizing me quickly and pushing me into my room.  “I want you to wait there and watch her carefully.”

I slipped the gun into my pocket and went, just as a knock at the door told me she was outside.

Kennedy opened the door, disclosing a very excited young woman.

“Oh, Professor Kennedy,” she cried, all in one breath, with much emotion, “I’m so glad I found you in.  I can’t tell you.  Oh—­my jewels!  They have been stolen—­and my husband must not know of it.  Help me to recover them—­please!”

She had not paused, but had gone on in a wild, voluble explanation.

“Just a moment, my dear young lady,” interrupted Craig, finding at last a chance to get a word in edgewise.  “Do you see that table—­ and all those papers?  Really, I can’t take your case.  I am too busy as it is even to take the cases of many of my own clients.”

“But, please, Professor Kennedy—­please!” she begged.  “Help me.  It means—­oh, I can’t tell you how much it means to me!”

She had come close to him and had laid her warm, little soft hand on his, in ardent entreaty.

From my hiding place in my room, I could not help seeing that she was using every charm of her sex and personality to lure him on, as she clung confidingly to him.  Craig was very much embarrassed, and I could not help a smile at his discomfiture.  Seriously, I should have hated to have been in his position.

Gertie had thrown her arms about Kennedy, as if in wildest devotion.  I wondered what Elaine would have thought, if she had a picture of that!

“Oh,” she begged him, “please—­please, help me!”

Still Kennedy seemed utterly unaffected by her passionate embrace.  Carefully he loosened her fingers from about his neck and removed the plump, enticing arms.

Gertie sank into a chair, weeping, while Kennedy stood before her a moment in deep abstraction.

Finally he seemed to make up his mind to something.  His manner toward her changed.  He took a step to her side.

“I will help you,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder.  “If it is possible I will recover your jewels.  Where do you live?”