They nodded eagerly as he told them the subtle plan.

Clutching Hand had scarcely left when Flirty Florrie began by getting published in the papers the story which I had seen.

The next day she called me up from the suburban house.  Having got me to promise to see her, she had scarcely turned from the telephone when Dan the Dude walked in from the next room.

“He’s coming,” she said.

Dan was carrying a huge stag head with a beautifully branched pair of antlers.  Under his arm was a coil of wire which he had connected to the inside of the head.

“Fine!” he exclaimed.  Then, pointing to the head, he added, “It’s all ready.  See how I fixed it?  That ought to please the Chief.”

Dan moved quickly to the mantle and mounted a stepladder there by which he had taken down the head, and started to replace the head above the mantle.

He hooked the head on a nail.

“There,” he said, unscrewing one of the beautiful brown glass eyes of the stag.

Back of it could be seen a camera shutter.  Dan worked the shutter several times to see whether it was all right.

“One of those new quick shutter cameras,” he explained.

Then he ran a couple of wires along the moulding, around the room and into a closet, where he made the connection with a sort of switchboard on which a button was marked, “Shutter” and the switch, “Wind film.”

“Now, Flirty,” he said, coming out of the closet and pulling up the shade which let a flood of sunlight into the room, “you see, I want you to stand here—­then, do your little trick.  Get me?”

“I get you Steve,” she laughed.

Just then the bell rang.

“That must be Jameson,” she cried.  “Now—­get to your corner.”

With a last look Dan went into the closet and shut the door.

Perhaps half an hour later, Clutching Hand himself called me up on the telephone.  It was he—­not the Star—­as I learned only too late.

. . . . . . . .

I had scarcely got out of the house, as Craig told me afterwards, when Flirty Florrie told all over again the embroidered tale that had caught my ear.

Kennedy said nothing, but listened intently, perhaps betraying in his face the scepticism he felt.

“You see,” she said, still voluble and eager to convince him, “I was only walking on the street.  Here,—­let me show you.  It was just like this.”

She took his arm and before he knew it, led him to the spot on the floor near the window which Dan had indicated.  Meanwhile Dan was listening attentively in his closet.

“Now—­stand there.  You are just as I was—­only I didn’t expect anything.”

She was pantomiming someone approaching stealthily while Kennedy watched her with interest, tinged with doubt.  Behind Craig, in his closet, Dan was reaching for the switchboard button.