“I didn’t do it!  I swear!  The old fool was soused and I don’t know what was the matter with me.  But I didn’t kill any one in the world!”

“There, sit down, little girl, and don’t get frightened.  This gentleman and I have come to learn the truth—­not to punish you for something you didn’t do.  Start with the beginning and tell all you remember.”

Shirley’s gentle manner was so unexpected, his voice so inspiring that she relaxed, sinking to the floor, as Shirley caught her limp girlish form in his arms.  He placed her on the couch again, and she regained her composure under his calm urging.  Little by little she visualized the details of the gruesome evening and narrated them under the magnetic cross-questions of the criminologist.

She had met the elder Van Cleft in the tea-room of a Broadway hostelry, by appointment made the evening before at Pinkie Taylor’s birthday party.  After several drinks together they took a taxicab to ride uptown to a little chop house.  Did she see any one she knew in the tea-room?  Of course, several of the fellows and girls whom she couldn’t remember just now, buzzed about, for Van Cleft was a liberal entertainer around the youngsters.  She had five varieties of cocktails in succession, and she became dizzy.  In the taxicab she became dizzier and when next she remembered anything definite she was sitting on the stool in the garage where she had been arrested.  That was all.  As she reached this point there came a knock on the door with a call for Van Cleft.

“You Van’s son!” she screamed.  Then she fainted, while Shirley caught her, calling an assistant to care for her, as he followed Van Cleft downstairs to answer the telephone.  “You know your cues?”

The millionaire nodded, as with trembling fingers he caught up the instrument and knelt on the bare floor to hold it close to the phonograph, which Shirley was engineering, with a fresh record in place.

“Hello!  Hello, there, I say.  Hello!”

Shirley strained his ears, to hear this time a rough, wheezy voice which caused the two men to exchange startled glances, as it proceeded:  “Is this you, Howard, my boy?”

“What do you want?  I can’t hear you.  The telephone is buzzing.  Louder please!”

Shirley nodded approbation, as the machine ran along merrily.

“Now, can you hear me.  Ahem!  Can you hear me now?  Is this Howard Van Cleft?”

“Yes, go ahead, but louder still.”

“Now, can you hear me?  This is your father’s dearest friend, Howard,—­this is William Grimsby speaking.  I am fearfully distressed and shocked to learn of his death, my poor boy.  And Howard, I am grieved to learn that there is some little scandal about it.  As your father’s confidential adviser, I urge you to hush it up at all cost.  I was told at your home just now by one of the servants that you had gone to this vulgar detective agency.”