"Why, how dare you? How perfectly silly!"
"Silly, is it?"
"I never heard of such a thing! This affair must have turned your brain! I came in here yesterday merely to ask you if you required the services of a woman detective. I always have wanted to take up detective work, you know. You told me you did not, and so I left."
"What sort of nonsense is this?" the sheriff cried.
"Nonsense? Oh, I am sorry now that there was nobody else in the office to hear me!" And Miss Mamie Blanchard sat back and smiled at the official on the other side of the desk.
"So that's the way of it!" Kowen said. "You'll stick to that story, will you, because nobody else heard what you said yesterday? Woman detective! You know what you came in here for yesterday—to carry out the orders of the Black Star, help frame up that gambling-house deal——"
"Really, I do not care to listen to any more such talk!" Mamie Blanchard told him. "I am living with my mother at a respectable private hotel——"
"And your brother, the one who was going to the dogs?"
"Oh, I have no brother! You must be mistaken, sir!"
"You told me yesterday——"