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“Yes!” he said, into the telephone. “Yes, this is Marshal Wittaker. Mr. Millbrook? Yes, I know–765 Locust Avenue. Broken into? What? Oh, broken out of! While you were out at dinner. Yes. Opened the front door with a key. Yes. What kind of a key, Mr. Millbrook? Thin, nickel-silver key. Nothing taken? What’s that? Left a dozen solid silver spoons engraved with your wife’s initials? I see. And broke out through a cellar window. Yes, I understand. No, it doesn’t seem possible, but such things have happened. I’ll send–“

He looked around, but Philo Gubb, who had heard the name and address, was already gone.

“I’ll attend to it at once,” he concluded, and hung up the receiver. He turned to Billy Getz. “Billy,” he said severely, “is this another of your jokes?”

“Wittaker,” said Billy, “I give you my word I had nothing to do with this.”

“Well, I’ll believe you,” said Wittaker rather reluctantly. “I thought it was you. Who do you suppose is trying to take the honor of town cut-up from you?”

“I can’t imagine,” said Billy. “Are you going to leave the thing in Gubb’s hands?”

“That mail-order detective? Not much! It is getting serious. I’ll send Purcell up to look the ground over. A man can’t make nickel-silver keys, and break out of houses and leave engraved spoons and forks around without leaving plenty of traces. We’ll have the man to-morrow, and give him a good scare.”

Detective Gubb in the meanwhile had gone directly to Mr. Millbrook’s un-burgled house at 765 Locust Avenue. Mr. Millbrook, a short, stout man with a husky voice that gurgled when he was excited, opened the door.

“I’m Deteckative Gubb, of the Rising Sun Deteckative Agency’s Correspondence School of Deteckating, come to see about your un-burglary,” said Philo Gubb, opening his coat to show his badge. “This is a most peculiar case.”

“I never heard anything like it in my life!” gurgled Mr. Millbrook. “Didn’t take a thing. Left a dozen spoons. Came in at the front door and broke out through the cellar window.”

“How long have you been married?” asked Mr. Gubb, seating himself on the edge of a chair and drawing out a notebook and pencil.

“Married? Married? What’s that got to do with it?” asked Mr. Millbrook. “Twenty years next June, if you want to know.”

“That makes it a difficult case,” said Philo Gubb. “If you was a bride and a groom it would be easier, but I guess maybe you can tell me the names of some of the folks you’ve had to dinner.”

“Dinner?” gurgled Mr. Millbrook. “Dinner? When?”

“Since you were married,” said Mr. Gubb.

“My dear man,” exclaimed Mr. Millbrook, “we’ve had thousands to dinner! Dining out and giving dinners is our favorite amusement. I can’t see what you mean. I can’t understand you.”

“Well, you got plated spoons and forks, ain’t you?” asked Philo Gubb.

“What if we have?” gurgled Mr. Millbrook. “That’s our affair, ain’t it?”

“It’s my affair too,” said Detective Gubb. “Mr. Griscom’s house was un-burgled last night, and he had plated spoons. The un-burglar left solid ones on him, like he did on you. Now, I reason induc-i-tively, like Sherlock Holmes. You both got plated spoons. An un-burglar leaves you solid ones. So he must have known you had plated ones and needed solid ones. So it must be some one who has had dinner with you.”

“My dear man,” gurgled Mr. Millbrook, “we never have had a plated spoon in this house! Who sent you here, anyway?”

“Nobody,” said Philo Gubb. “I come of myself.”

“Well, you can go of yourself!” gurgled Mr. Millbrook angrily. “There’s the door. Get out!”

On his way out Mr. Gubb met Patrolman Purcell coming in.

Detective Gubb, outside the house, examined the cellar window as well as he could. There was not a mark to be seen from the outside, but a pansy-bed bore the marks of the un-burglar’s exit. To get out of the cellar, the un-burglar had had to wiggle himself out of the small window, and had crushed the pansies flat. Detective Gubb felt carefully among the crushed pansies, and his hand found something hard and round. It was the drumstick bone of a chicken’s leg. Detective Gubb threw it away. Even an un-burglar would not have chosen a chicken’s leg bone as a weapon. Evidently Billy Getz had not left any clue in the pansy-bed.