Kip Morgan sat unhappily over a bourbon and soda in a bar on Sixth Street.  How did you find a man who did not want to be found when all you knew about him was that he was thirty-six years old and played a saxophone?

Especially when some charred remains, tagged with this man's name, had been buried in New Jersey?  All you had to go on was a woman's hunch.

Not quite all.  The lady with the hunch was willing to back her belief with fifty dollars a day for expenses and five thousand if the man was found.

Kipling Morgan had set himself up as a private detective and this was his first case.  Five thousand dollars would buy a lot of ham and eggs, and at the moment, the expense money was important.

"No use to be sentimental about this," he told himself.  "This babe has the dough, and she wants you to look.  So all right, you're looking.  What is there to fuss about?"

He was conscientious; that was his trouble.  He did not want to spend her money without giving something in return.  Moreover, he was ambitious.  He wanted very much to succeed with his first case, particularly such a case as this.  He could use some headlines.

Kip Morgan ordered another drink and thought about it.  He took his battered black hat off his head and ran his fingers through his dark hair.  He stared at the glass and swore.  He picked up the glass, sipped the drink, and muttered to himself.

Five days before, sitting in the cubbyhole he called an office, the door opened, and a mink coat walked in with a blonde inside.  She was in her late twenties, had a model's walk, and a figure made to wear clothes, but one that would look pretty good without them.

"You are Kip Morgan?"

He pulled his feet off the desk and stood up.  He was a lean, hard-muscled six feet and over who had been until that moment debating as to whether he should skip lunch and enjoy a good dinner or just save the money.

"Yes," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"Do you have any cases you are working on now?"  Her eyes were gray, direct, sincere.  They were also beautiful.

"Well, ah -"  He hesitated, and his face flushed, and that made him angry with himself.  What could he tell her?  That he was broke and she was the first client to walk into his office?  It would scarcely inspire confidence.

"As a matter of fact," she said, the shadow of a smile on her lips, "I am quite aware you have no other cases.  I made inquiries and was told you were the youngest, newest, and least occupied private detective in town."

He chuckled in spite of himself.  "That's not very good advertising, is it?"

"It is to me.  I want an investigator with ambition.  I want a fresh viewpoint.  I want someone who can devote all his time to the job."

"That's my number you're calling."  He gestured to a chair.  "It looks like we might do business.  Will you sit down?"

She sat down and showed a lot of expensive hosiery  and beautifully shaped legs.  "My name is Mrs. Roger Whitson.  I am a widow with one child, a boy.

"Four years ago, in New Jersey, my husband, who was a payroll messenger, left the bank acting as a guard for a teller named Henry Willard and a fifty-thousand-dollar payroll.