"You, may save yourself the trouble, I think, Tommy," drawled Average Jones. "Mr. Smith will never be called to account in this world for the murder—execution of Telfik Bey."

"You saw the marks on my finger-nails," said the foreigner. "That is the sure sign. I may live twenty-four hours; I may live twice or three times that period. The poison does its work, once it gets into the blood, and there is no help. It matters nothing. My ambition is satisfied."

"And it is because of this that you let us find you?" asked Bertram.

"I had a curiosity to know who had so strangely traced my actions."

"But what was the poison?" asked Professor Gehren.

"I think Mr. Jones has more than a suspicion," replied the doomed man, with a smile. "You will find useful references on yonder shelf, Mr. Jones."

Moving across to the shelf, Average Jones took down a heavy volume and ran quickly over the leaves.

"Ah!" he said presently, and not noticing, in his absorption, that the host had crossed again to the tiroir and was quietly searching in a compartment, he read aloud:

"Little is known of cyanide of cacodyl, in its action the swiftest and most deadly of existing poisons. In the '40's, Bunsen, the German chemist, combined oxide of cacodyl with cyanogen, a radical of prussic acid, producing cyanide of cacodyl, or diniethyl arsine cyanide. As both of its components are of the deadliest description, it is extremely dangerous to make. It can be made only in the open air, and not without the most extreme precaution known to science. Mr. Lacelles Scott, of England, nearly lost his life experimenting with it in 1904. A small fraction of a grain gives off vapor sufficient to kill a human being instantly."

"Had you known about this stuff, Average?" asked Bertram.

"No, I'd never beard of it. But from its action and from the lettered cabinet, I judged that—"

"This is all very well," broke in Mr. Assistant Secretary Thomas Colvin McIntyre, "but I want this man arrested. How can we know that he isn't shamming and may not escape us, after all?"

"By this," retorted their host. He held aloft a small glass vial, lead-seated, and staggered weakly to the door.

"Stop him!" said Average Jones sharply.

The door closed on the words. There was a heavy fall without, followed by the light tinkle of glass.

Average Jones, who had half crossed the room in a leap, turned to his friends, warning them back.

"Too late. We can't go out yet. Wait for the fumes to dissipate."

They stood, the four men, rigid. Presently Average Jones, opening a rear window, leaped to the ground, followed by the others, and came around the corner of the porch. The dead man lay with peaceful face. Professor Gehren uncovered.

"God forgive him," he said. "Who shall say that he was not right?"

"Not I," said the young assistant secretary in awed tones. "I'm glad he escaped. But what am I to do? Here we are with a dead body on our hands, and a state secret to be kept from the prying police."

Average Jones stood thinking for a moment, then he entered the room and called up the coroner's office on the telephone.

"Listen, you men," he said to his companions. Then, to the official who answered: "There's a suicide at 428 Oliver Avenue, the Bronx. Four of us witnessed it. We had come to keep an appointment with the man in connection with a discovery he claimed in metallurgy, and found him dying. Yes; we will wait here. Good-by."

Returning to the porch again, he cleared away the fragments of glass, aided by Bertram. To one of these clung a shred of paper. For all his languid self-control the club dilettante shivered a little as he thrust at it with a stick.

"Look, Average, it's the 'Mercy' sign again. What a hideous travesty!"

Average Jones shook his bead.

"It isn't 'Mercy,' Bert. It's the label that he attached, for precaution, to everything that had to do with his deadly stuff. The formula for cyanide of cacodyl is 'Me-2CY.' It was the scrawly handwriting that misled; that's all."

"So I was right when I suggested that his 'Mercy' had gone back on him," said Mr. Thomas Colvin McIntyre, with a semi-hysterical giggle.

Average Jones looked from the peaceful face of the dead to the label, fluttering in the light breeze.

"No," he said gravely. "You were wrong. It was his friend to the last."



CHAPTER VI. BLUE FIRES

"Cabs for comfort; cars for company," was an apothegm which Average Jones had evolved from experience. A professed student of life, he maintained, must keep in touch with life at every feasible angle. No experience should come amiss to a detective; he should be a pundit of all knowledge. A detective he now frankly considered himself; and the real drudgery of his unique profession of Ad-Visor was supportable only because of the compensating thrill of the occasional chase, the radiance of the Adventure of Life glinting from time to time across his path.

There were few places, Average Jones held, where human nature in the rough can be studied to better advantage than in the stifling tunnels of the subway or the close-packed sardine boxes of the metropolitan surface lines. It was in pursuance of this theory that he encountered the Westerner, on Third avenue car. By custom, Average Jones picked out the most interesting or unusual human being in any assembly where he found himself, for study and analysis. This man was peculiar in that he alone was not perspiring in the sodden August humidity. The clear-browned skin and the rangy strength of the figure gave him a certain distinction. He held in his sinewy hands a doubly folded newspaper. Presently it slipped from his hold to the seat beside him. He stared at the window opposite with harassed and unseeing eyes. Abruptly he rose and went out on the platform. Average Jones picked up the paper. In the middle of the column to which it was folded was a marked advertisement:

ARE you in an embarrassing position? Anything, anywhere, any time, regardless of nature or location. Everybody's friend. Consultation at all hours. Suite 152, Owl Building, Brooklyn.

The car was nearing Brooklyn Bridge. Average Jones saw his man drop lightly off. He followed and at the bridge entrance caught him up.

"You've left your paper," he said.

The stranger whirled quickly. "Right," he said. "Thanks. Perhaps you can tell me where the Owl Building is."

"Are you going there?"

"Yes."

"I wouldn't."

A slight wrinkle of surprise appeared on the man's tanned forehead.

"Perhaps you wouldn't," he returned coolly.

"In other words, 'mind your business,"' said Average Jones, with a smile.

"Something of that sort," admitted the stranger.

"Nevertheless, I wouldn't consult with Everbody's Friend over in the Owl Building."

"Er—because—er—if I may speak plainly," drawled Average Jones, "I wouldn't risk a woman's name with a gang of blackmailers."

"You've got your nerve," retorted the stranger. The keen eyes, flattening almost to slits, fixed on the impassive face of the other.

"Well, I'll go you," he decided, after a moment. His glance swept the range of vision and settled upon a rathskeller sign. "Come over there where we can talk."

They crossed the grilling roadway, and, being wise in the heat, ordered "soft" drinks.

"Now," said the stranger, "you've declared in on my game. Make good. What's your interest?"

"None, personally. I like your looks, that's all," replied the other frankly. "And I don't like to see you run into that spider's web."

"You know them?"

"Twice in the last year I've made 'em change their place of business."

"But you don't know me. And you spoke of a woman."

"I've been studying you on the car," explained Average Jones. "You're hard as nails; yet your nerves are on edge. It isn't illness, so it must be trouble. On your watch-chain you've got a solitaire diamond ring. Not for ornament; you aren't that sort of a dresser. It's there for, convenience until you can find a place to put it. When a deeply troubled man wears an engagement ring on his watch chain it's a fair inference that there's been an obstruction in the course of true love. Unless I'm mistaken, you, being a stranger newly come to town, were going to take your case to those man-eating sharks?"

"How do you know I've just come to town?"

"When you looked at your watch I noticed it was three hours slow. That must mean the Pacific coast, or near it. Therefore you've just got in from the Far West and haven't thought to rectify your time. At a venture I'd say you were a mining man from down around the Ray-Kelvin copper district in Arizona. That peculiar, translucent copper silicate in your scarf-pin comes from those mines."

"The Blue Fire? I wish it had stayed there, all of it! Anything else?"

"Yes," returned Average Jones, warming to the game. "You're an Eastern college man, I think. Anyway, your father or some older member of your family graduated from one of the older colleges."

"What's the answer?"

"The gold of your Phi Beta Kappa key is a different color from your watch-chain. It's the old metal, antedating the California gold. Did your father graduate some time in the latter forties or early fifties?"

"Hamilton, '51. I'm '89. Name, Kirby."

A gleam of pleasure appeared in Average Jones keen eyes. "That's rather a coincidence," he said. "Two of us from the Old Hill. I'm Jones of '04. Had a cousin in your class, Carl Van Reypen."

They plunged into the intimate community of interest which is the peculiar heritage and asset of the small, close-knit old college. Presently, however, Kirby's forehead wrinkled again. He sat silent, communing with himself. At length he lifted his head like one who has taken a resolution.

"You made a good guess at a woman in the case," he, said. "And you call this a coincidence? She'd say it was a case of intuition. She's very strong on intuition and superstition generally." There was a mixture of tenderness and bitterness in his tone. "Chance brought that advertisement to her eyes. A hat-pin she'd dropped stuck through it, or something of the sort. Enough for her. Nothing would do but that I should chase over to see the Owl Building bunch. At that, maybe her hunch was right. It's brought me up against you. Perhaps you can help me. What are you? A sort of detective?"

"Only on the side." Average Jones drew a card from his pocket, and tendered it:

A. JONES, AD-VISOR

Advice upon all matters connected with Advertising Astor Court Temple 2 to 5 P.M.

"Ad-Visor, eh?" repeated the other. "Well, there's going to be an advertisement in the Evening Truth to-day, by me. Here's a proof of it."

Average Jones took the slip and read it.

LOST—Necklace of curious blue stones from Hotel Denton, night of August 6. Reward greater than value of stones for return to hotel. No questions asked.

"Reward greater than value of stones," commented Average Jones. "There's a sentimental interest, then?"

"Will you take the case?" returned Kirby abruptly.

"At least I'll look into it," replied Average Jones.

"Come to the hotel, then, and lunch with me, and I'll open up the whole thing."

Across a luncheon-table, at the quiet, old-fashioned Hotel Denton, Kirby unburdened himself.

"You know all that's necessary about me. The—the other party in the matter is Mrs. Hale. She's a young widow. We've been engaged for six months; were to be married in a fortnight. Now she insists on a postponement. That's where I want your help."

Average Jones moved uneasily in his chair. "Really, Mr. Kirby, lovers' quarrels aren't in my line."

"There's been no quarrel. We're as much engaged now as ever, in spite of the return of the ring. It's only her infern—her deep-rooted superstition that's caused this trouble. One can't blame her; her father and mother were both killed in an accident after some sort of 'ghostly warning.' The first thing I gave her, after our engagement, was a necklace of these stones"—he tapped his scarf pin—"that I'd selected, one by one, myself. They're beautiful, as you see, but they're not particularly valuable; only semiprecious. The devil of it is that they're the subject of an Indian legend. The Indians and Mexicans call them "blue fires," and say they have the power to bind and loose in love. Edna has been out in that country; she's naturally high strung and responsive to that sort of thing, as I told you, and she fairly soaked in all that nonsense. To make it worse, when I sent them to her I wrote that—that—" a dull red surged up under the tan skin—"that as long as the fire in the stones burned blue for her my heart would be all hers. Now the necklace is gone. You can imagine the effect on a woman of that temperament. And you can see the result." He pointed with a face of misery to the solitaire on his watch-chain. "She insisted on giving this back. Says that a woman as careless as she proved herself can't be trusted with jewelry. And she's hysterically sure that misfortune will follow us for ever if we're married without recovering the fool necklace. So she's begged a postponement."

"Details," said Average Jones crisply.

"She's here at this hotel. Has a small suite on the third floor. Came down from her home in central New York to meet my mother, whom she had never seen. Mother's here, too, on the same floor. Night before last Mrs. Hale thought she heard a noise in her outer room. She made a look-see, but found nothing. In the morning when she got up, about ten (she's a late riser) the necklace was gone."

"Where had it been left?"

"On a stand in her sitting-room."

"Anything else taken?"

"That's the strange part of it. Her purse, with over a hundred dollars in it, which lay under the necklace, wasn't touched."

"Does she usually leave valuables around in that casual way?"

"Well, you see, she's always stayed at the Denton and she felt perfectly secure here."

"Any other thefts in the hotel?"

"Not that I can discover. But one of the guests on the same floor with Mrs. Hale saw a fellow acting queerly that same night. There he sits, yonder, at that table. I'll ask him to come over."

The guest, an elderly man, already interested in the case, was willing enough to tell all he knew.

"I was awakened by some one fumbling at my door and making a clinking noise," he explained. "I called out. Nobody answered. Almost immediately I heard a noise across the hall. I opened my door. A man was fussing at the keyhole of the room opposite. He was very clumsy. I said, 'is that your room?' He didn't even look at me. In a moment he started down the hallway. He walked very fast, and I could hear him muttering to himself. He seemed to be carrying something in front of him with both hands. It was his keys, I suppose. Anyway I could hear it clink. At the end of the hall he stopped, turned to the door at the left and fumbled at the keyhole for quite a while. I could bear his keys clink again. This time, I suppose, he had the right room, for be unlocked it and went in. I listened for fifteen or twenty minutes. There was nothing further."

Average Jones looked at Kirby with lifted brows of inquiry. Kirby nodded, indicating that the end room was Mrs. Hales'.

"How was the man dressed?" asked Average Jones.

"Grayish dressing-gown and bed-slippers. He was tall and had gray hair."

"Many thanks. Now, Mr. Kirby, will you take me to see Mrs. Hale?"

The young widow received them in her sitting-room. She was of the slender, big-eyed, sensitive type of womanhood; her piquant face marred by the evidences of sleeplessness and tears. To Average Jones she gave her confidence at once. People usually did.

"I felt sure the advertisement would bring us help," she said wistfully. "Now, I feel surer than ever."

"Faith helps the worst case," said the young man, smiling. "Mr. Kirby tells me that the intruder awakened you."

"Yes; and I'm a very heavy sleeper. Still I can't say positively that anything definite roused me; it was rather an impression of some one's being about. I came out of my bedroom and looked around the outer room, but there was nobody there."

"You didn't think to look for the necklace?"

"No," she said with a little gasp; "if I only had!"

"And—er—you didn't happen to hear a clinking noise, did you?"

"No."

"After he'd got into the room he'd put the key up, wouldn't he?" suggested Kirby.

"You're assuming that he had a key."

"Of course he had a key. The guest across the ball saw him trying it on the other doors and heard it clink against the lock."

"If he had a key to this room why did he try it on several other doors first?" propounded Average Jones. "As for the clinking noise, in which I'm a good deal interested—may I look at your key, Mrs. Hale?"

She handed it to him. He tried it on the lock, outside, jabbing at the metal setting. The resultant sound was dull and wooden. "Not much of the clink which our friend describes as having heard, is it?" he remarked.

"Then how could he get into my room?" cried Mrs. Hale.

"Are you sure your door was locked?"

"Certain. As soon as I missed the necklace I looked at the catch."

"That was in the morning. But the night before?"

"I always slip the spring. And I know I did this time because it had been left unsprung so that Mr. Kirby's mother could come in and out of my sitting-room, and I remember springing it when she left for bed."

"Sometimes these locks don't work." Slipping the catch back, Average Jones pressed the lever down. There was a click, but the ward failed to slip. At the second attempt the lock worked. But repeated trials proved that more than half the time the door did not lock.

"So," observed Average Jones, "I think we may dismiss the key theory."

"But the locked door this morning?" cried Mrs. Hale.

"The intruder may have done that as he left."

"I don't see why," protested Kirby, in a tone which indicated a waning faith in Jones.

"By way of confusing the trail. Possibly he hoped to suggest that he'd escaped by the fire-escape. Presumably he was on the balcony when Mrs. Hale came out into this room."

As he spoke Average Jones laid a hand on the heavy net curtains which hung before the balcony window. Instead of parting them, however, he stood with upturned eyes.

"Was that curtain torn before yesterday?" he asked Mrs. Hale.

"I hardly think so. The hotel people are very, careful in the up-keep of the rooms."

Jones mounted a chair with scant respect for the upholstery, and examined the damaged drapery. Descending, he tugged tentatively at the other curtain, first with his right hand, then with his left; then with both. The fabric gave a little at the last test. Jones disappeared through the window.

When he returned, after five minutes, he held in his hand some scrapings of the rusted iron which formed the balcony railing.

"You're a mining man, Mr. Kirby," he said. "Would you say that assayed anything?"

Kirby examined the glinting particles. "Gold," he said decisively.

"Ah, then the necklace rubbed with some violence against the railing. Now, Mrs. Hale, how long were you awake?"

"Ten or fifteen minutes. I remember that a continuous rattling of wagons below kept up for a little while. And I heard one of the drivers call out something about taking the air."

"Er—really!" Average Jones became suddenly absorbed in his seal ring. He turned it around five accurate times and turned it back an equal number of revolutions. "Did he—er—get any answer?"

"Not that I heard."

The young man pondered, then drew a chair up to, Mrs. Hale's escritoire, and, with an abrupt "excuse me," helped himself to pen, ink and paper.

"There!" he said, after five minutes' work. "That'll do for a starter. You see," he added, handing the product of his toil to Mrs. Hale, "this street happens to be the regular cross-town route for the milk that comes over by one of the minor ferries. If you heard a number of wagons passing in the early morning they were the milk-vans. Hence this."

Mrs. Hale read:

"MILK-DRIVERS, ATTENTION—Delaware Central mid-town route. Who talked to man outside hotel early morning of August 7? Twenty dollars to right man. Apply personally to Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple, New York."

"For the coming issue of the Milk-Dealers' Journal," explained its author. "Now, Mr. Kirby, I want you to find out for me—Mrs. Hale can help you, since she has known the hotel people for years—the names of all those who gave up rooms on this floor, or the floors above or below, yesterday morning, and ask whether they are known to the hotel people."

"You think the thief is still in the hotel?" cried Mrs. Hale.

"Hardly. But I think I see smoke from your blue fires. To make out the figure through the smoke is not—" Average Jones broke off, shaking his head. He was still shaking his head when he left the hotel.

It took three days for the milk-journal advertisement to work. On the afternoon of August tenth, a lank, husky-voiced teamster called at the office of the Ad-Visor and was passed in ahead of the waiting line.

"I'm after that twenty," he declared.

"Earn it," said Average Jones with equal brevity.

"Hotel Denton. Guy on the third floor balcony—"

"Right so far."

"Leanin' on the rail as if he was sick. I give him a hello. 'Takin' a nip of night air, Bill?' I says. He didn't say nothin'."

"Did he do anything?"

"Kinder fanned himself an' jerked his head back over his shoulder. Meanin' it was too hot to sleep inside, I reckon. It sure was hot!"

"Fanned himself? How?"

"Like this." The visitor raised his hands awkwardly, cupped them, and drew them toward his face.

"Er—with both hands?"

"Did you see him go in?"

"Nope."

"Here's your twenty," said Average Jones. "You're long on sense and short on words. I wish there were more like you."

"Thanks. Thanks again," said the teamster, and went out.

Meantime Kirby had sent his list of the guests who had given up their rooms on August seventh:

George M. Weaver, Jr., Utica, N. Y., well known to hotel people and vouched for by them.

Walker Parker, New Orleans, ditto.

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hull; quiet elderly people; first visit to hotel.

Henry M. Gillespie, Locke, N. Y. Middle-aged man; new guest.

C. F. Willard, Chicago; been going to hotel for ten years; vouched for by hotel people.

Armed with the list, Average Jones went to the Hotel Denton and spent a busy morning.

"I've had a little talk with the hotel servants," said he to Kirby, when the latter called to make inquiries. "Mr. Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke, New York, had room 168. It's on the same floor with Mrs. Hale's suite, at the farther end of the hall. He had only one piece of luggage, a suitcase marked H. M. G. That information I got from the porter. He left his room in perfect order except for one thing: one of the knobs on the headboard of the old fashioned bed was broken off short. He didn't mention the matter to the hotel people."

"What do you make of that?"

"It was a stout knob. Only a considerable effort of strength exerted in a peculiar way would have broken it as it was broken. There was something unusual going on in room 168, all right."

"Then you think Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke, New York, is our man."

"No," said Average Jones.

The Westerner's square jaw fell. "Why not?"

"Because there's no such person as Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke, New York. I've just sent there and found out."

Three stones of the fire-blue necklace returned on the current of advertised appeal. One was brought in by the night bartender of a "sporting" club. He had bought it from a man who had picked it up in a gutter; just where, the finder couldn't remember. For the second a South Brooklyn pawnbroker demanded (and received) an exorbitant reward. A florist in Greenwich, Connecticut, contributed the last. With that patient attention to detail which is the A. B. C. of detective work, Average Jones traced down these apparently incongruous wanderings of the stones and then followed them all, back to Mrs. Hale's fire-escape.

The bartender's stone offered no difficulties. The setting which the pawnbroker brought in had been found on the city refuse heap by a scavenger. It had fallen through a grating into the hotel cellar, and had been swept out with the rubbish to go to the municipal "dump." The apparent mystery of the florist was lucid when Jones found that the hotel exchanged its shop-worn plants with the Greenwich Floral Company. His roaming eye, keen for every detail, had noticed a row of tubbed azaleas within the ground enclosure of the Denton. Recalling this to mind, it was easy for the Ad-Visor to surmise that the gem had dropped from the fire-escape into a tub, which was, shortly after, shipped to the florist. Thus it was apparent that the three jewels had been stripped from the necklace by forcible contact with the iron rail of the fire-escape at the point where Average Jones had found the "color" of precious metal. The stones were identified by Kirby, from a peculiarity in the setting, as the end three, nearest the clasp at the back; a point which Jones carefully noted. But there the trail ended. No more fire-blue stones came in.

For three weeks Average Jones issued advertisements like commands. The advertisements would, perhaps, have struck the formal-minded Kirby as evidences of a wavering intellect. Indeed, they present a curious and incongruous appearance upon the page of Average Jones' scrapbook, where they now mark a successful conclusion. The first reads as follows:

OH, YOU HOTEL MEN! Come through with the dope on H. M. G. What's he done to your place? Put a stamp on it and we'll swap dates on his past performances. A. Jones, Astor Court Temple, New York City.

This was spread abroad through the medium of Mine Host's Weekly and other organs of the hotel trade.

It was followed by this, of a somewhat later date:

WANTED-Slippery Sams, Human Eels, Fetter Kings etc Liberal reward to artist who sold Second-hand amateur, with instructions for use. Send full details, time and place to A. Jones, Court Temple, New York City.

Variety, the Clipper and the Billboard scattered the appeal broadcast throughout "the profession." Thousands read it, and one answered it. And within a few days after receiving that answer Jones wired to Kirby:

"Probably found. Bring Mrs. Hale to-morrow at 11. Answer. A. JONES."

Kirby answered. He also telegraphed voluminously to his ex-fiancee, who had returned to her home, and who replied that she would leave by the night train. Some minutes before the hour the pair were at Average Jones' office. Kirby fairly pranced with impatience while they were kept waiting in a side room. The only other occupant was a man with a large black dress-suit case, who sat at the window in a slump of dejection. He raised his head for a moment when they were summoned and let it sag down again as they left.

Average Jones greeted his guests cordially. Their first questions to him were significant of the masculine and feminine differences in point of view.

"Have you got the necklace?" cried Mrs. Hale.

"Have you got the thief?" queried Kirby.

"I haven't got the necklace and I haven't got the thief," announced Average Jones; "but I think I've got the man who's got the necklace."

"Did the thief hand it over to him?" demanded Kirby.

"Are you conversant with the Baconian system of thought, which Old Chips used to preach to us at Hamilton?" countered Average Jones.

"Forgotten it if I ever knew it," returned Kirby.

"So I infer from your repeated use of the word 'thief.' Bacon's principle—an admirable principle in detective work—is that we should learn from things and not from the names of things. You are deluding yourself with a name. Because the law, which is always rigid and sometimes stupid, says that a man who takes that which does not belong to him is a thief, you've got your mind fixed on the name 'thief,' and the idea of theft. If I had gone off on that tack I shouldn't have the interesting privilege of introducing to you Mr. Harvey M. Greene, who now sits in the outer room."

"H. M. G.," said Kirby quickly. "Is it possible that that decent-looking old boy out there is the man who stole—"

"It is not," interrupted Average Jones with emphasis, "and I shall ask you, whatever may occur, to guard your speech from offensive expressions of that sort while he is here."

"All right, if you say so," acquiesced the other. "But do you mind telling me how you figure out a man traveling under an alias and helping himself to other people's property on any other basis than that he's a thief?"

"A, B, C," replied Average Jones; "as thus: A—Thieves don't wander about in dressing-gowns. B—Nor take necklaces and leave purses. C—Nor strip gems violently apart and scatter them like largess from fire-escapes. The rest of the alphabet I postpone. Now for Mr. Greene."

The man from the outer room entered and nervously acknowledged his introduction to the others.

"Mr. Greene," explained Jones, "has kindly consented to help clear up the events of the night of August sixth at the Hotel Denton and"—he paused for a moment and shifted his gaze to the newcomer's narrow shoes—"and—er—the loss of—er—Mrs. Hale's jeweled necklace."

The boots retracted sharply, as under the impulse of some sudden emotion; startled surprise, for example. "What?" cried Greene, in obvious amazement. "I don't know anything about a necklace."

A twinkle of satisfaction appeared at the corners of Average Jones' eyes.

"That also is possible," he admitted. "If you'll permit the form of an examination; when you came to the Hotel Denton on August sixth, did you carry the same suitcase you now have with you, and similarly packed?"

"Ye-es. As nearly as possible."

"Thank you. You were registered under the name of Henry M. Gillespie?"

The other's voice was low and strained as he replied in the affirmative.

"For good reasons of your own?"

"Yes."

"For which same reasons you left the hotel quite early on the following morning?"

"Yes."

"Your business compels you to travel a great deal?"

"Yes."

"Do you often register under an alias?"

"Yes," returned the other, his face twitching.

"But not always?"

"No."

"In a large city and a strange hotel, for example, you'd take any name which would correspond to the initials, H. M. G., on your dress-suit case. But in a small town where you were known, you'd be obliged to register under your real name of Harvey M. Greene. It was that necessity which enabled me to find you."

"I'd like to know how you did it," said the other gloomily.

From the left-hand drawer of his desk Jones produced a piece of netting, with hooks along one end.

"Do you recognize the material, Mrs. Hale," he asked.

"Why, it's the same stuff as the Hotel Denton curtains, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes," said Average Jones, attaching it to the curtain rod at the side door. "Now, will you jerk that violently with one hand?"

"It will tear loose, won't it?" she asked.

"That's just what it will do. Try it."

The fabric ripped from the hooks as she jerked.

"You remember," said Jones, "that your curtain was torn partly across, and not ripped from the hook at all. Now see."

He caught the netting in both hands and tautened it sharply. It began to part.

"Awkward," he said, "yet it's the only way it could have been done. Now, here's a bedpost, exactly like the one in room 168, occupied by Mr. Greene at the Denton. Kirby, you're a powerful man. Can you break that knob off with one hand?"

He wedged the post firmly in a chair for the trial. The bedpost resisted.

"Could you do it with both hands?" he asked.

"Probably, if I could get a hold. But there isn't surface enough for a good hold."

"No, there isn't. But now." Jones coiled a rope around the post and handed the end to Kirby. He pulled sharply. The knob snapped and rolled on the floor.

"Q. E. D.," said Kirby. "But it doesn't mean anything to me."

"Doesn't it? Let me recall some other evidence. The guest who saw Mr. Greene in the hallway thought he was carrying something in both hands. The milk driver who hailed him on the balcony noticed that he gestured awkwardly with both hands. In what circumstances would a man use both hands for action normally performed with one?"

"Too much drink," hazarded Kirby, looking dubiously at Greene, who had been following Jones' discourse with absorbed attention.

"Possibly. But it wouldn't fit this case."

"Physical weakness," suggested Mrs. Hale.

"Rather a shrewd suggestion. But no weakling broke off that bedpost in Henry M. Gillespie's room. I assumed the theory that the phenomena of that night were symptomatic rather than accidental. Therefore, I set out to find in what other places the mysterious H. M. G. had performed."

"How did you know my initials really were H. M. G.?" asked Mr. Greene.

"The porter at the Denton had seen them 'Henry M. Gillespie's' suitcase. So I sent out loudly printed call to all hotel clerks for information about a troublesome H. M. G."

He handed the "OH, YOU HOTEL MEN" advertisement to the little group.

"Plenty of replies came. You have, if I may say it without offense, Mr. Greene, an unfortunate reputation among hotel proprietors. Small wonder that you use an alias. From the Hotel Carpathia in Boston I got a response more valuable than I had dared to hope. An H. M. G. guest—H. Morton Garson, of Pillston, Pennsylvania (Mr. Greene nodded)—had wrecked his room and left behind him this souvenir."

Leaning over, Jones pulled, clinking from the scrap-basket, a fine steel chain. It was endless and some twelve feet in total length, and had two small loops, about a foot apart. Mrs. Hale and Kirby stared at it in speechless surprise.

"Yes, that is mine," said Mr. Greene with composure. "I left it because it had ceased to be serviceable to me."

"Ah! That's very interesting," said Average Jones with a keen glance. "Of course when I examined it and found no locks, I guessed that it was a trick chain, and that there were invisible springs in the wrist loops."

"But why should any one chain Mr. Greene to his bed with a trick chain?" questioned Mrs. Hale, whose mind had been working swiftly.

"He chained himself," explained Jones, "for excellent reasons. As there is no regular trade in these things, I figured that he probably bought it from some juggler whose performance had given him the idea. So," continued Jones, producing a specimen of his advertisements in the theatrical publications, "I set out to find what professional had sold a 'prop', to an amateur. I found the sale had been made at Marsfield, Ohio, late in November of last year, by a 'Slippery Sam,' termed 'The Elusive Edwardes.' On November twenty-eighth of last year Mr. Harvey M. Greene, of Richmond, Virginia, was registered at the principal, in fact the only decent hotel, at Barsfield. I wrote to him and here he is."

"Yes; but where is my necklace?" cried Mrs. Hale.

"On my word of honor, madam, I know nothing of your necklace," asserted Greene, with a painful contraction of his features. "If this gentleman can throw any more light—"

"I think I can," said Average Jones. "Do you remember anything of that night's events after you broke off the bedpost and left your room—the meeting with a guest who questioned you in the hall, for example?"

"Nothing. Not a thing until I awoke and found myself on the fire-escape."

"Awoke?" cried Kirby. "Were you asleep all the time?"

"Certainly. I'm a confirmed sleep-walker worst type. That's why I go under an alias. That's why I got the trick handcuff chain and chained myself up with it, until I found it drove me fighting', crazy in my sleep when I couldn't break away. That's why I slept in my dressing-gown that night at the Denton. There was a red light in the hall outside and any light, particularly a colored one, is likely to set me going. I probably dreamed I was escaping from a locomotive—that's a common delusion of mine—and sought refuge in the first door that was open."

"Wait a minute," said Average Jones. "You—er—say that you are—er—peculiarly susceptible to—er—colored light."

"Yes."

"Mrs. Hale, was the table on which the necklace lay in line with any light outside?"

"I think probably with the direct ray of an electric globe shining through the farther window."

"Then, Mr. Greene," said, Average Jones, "the glint of the fire-blue stones undoubtedly caught your eye. You seized on the necklace and carried it out on the fire-escape balcony, where the cool air or the milk-driver's hail awakened you. Have you no recollection of seeing such a thing?"

"Not the faintest, unhappily."

"Then he must have dropped it to the ground below," said Kirby.

"I don't think so," controverted Jones slowly. "Mr. Greene must have been clinging to it tenaciously when it swung and caught against the railing, stripping off the three end stones. If the whole necklace had dropped it would have broken up fine, and more than three stones would have returned to us in reply to the advertisements. And in that case, too, the chances against the end stones alone returning, out of all the thirty-six, are too unlikely to be considered. No, the fire-blue necklace never fell to the ground."

"It certainly didn't remain on the balcony," said Kirby. "It would have been discovered there."

"Quite so," assented Average Jones. "We're getting at it by the process of exclusion. The necklace didn't fall. It didn't stay. Therefore?"—he looked inquiringly at Mrs. Hale.

"It returned," she said quickly.

"With Mr. Greene," added Average Jones.

"I tell you," cried that gentleman vehemently, "I haven't set eyes on the wretched thing."

"Agreed," returned Average Jones; "which doesn't at all affect the point I wish to make. You may recall, Mr. Greene, that in my message I asked you to pack your suitcase exactly as it was when you left the hotel with it on the morning of August seventh."

"I've done so with the exception of the conjurer's chain, of course."

"Including the dressing-gown you had on, that night, I assume. Have you worn it since?"

"No. It hung in my closet until yesterday, when I folded it to pack. You see, I—I've had to give up the road on account of my unhappy failing."

"Then permit me." Average Jones stooped to, the dress-suit case, drew out the garment and thrust his hand into its one pocket. He turned to Mrs. Hale.

"Would you—er—mind—er—leaning over a bit?" he said.

She bent her dainty head, then gave a startled cry of delight as the young man, with a swift motion, looped over her shoulders a chain of living blue fires which gleamed and glinted in the sunlight.

"They were there all the time," she exclaimed; "and you knew it."

"Guessed it," he corrected, "by figuring out that they couldn't well be elsewhere—unless on the untenable hypothesis that our friend, Mr. Greene here, was a thief."

"Which only goes to prove," said Kirby soberly, "that evidence may be a mighty deceptive accuser."

"Which only goes to prove," amended Average Jones, "that there's no fire, even the bluest, without traceable smoke."'



CHAPTER VII. PIN-PRICKS

"The thing is a fake," declared Bertram. He slumped heavily into a chair, and scowled at Average Jones' well-littered desk, whereon he had just tossed a sheet of paper. His usually impeccable hair was tousled. His trousers evinced a distinct tendency to bag at the knees, and his coat was undeniably wrinkled. That the elegant and flawless dilettante of the Cosmic Club should have come forth, at eleven o'clock of a morning, in such a state of comparative disreputability, argued an upheaval of mind little short of phenomenal.

"A fake," he reiterated. "I've spent a night of pseudo-intellectual riot and ruin over it. You've almost destroyed a young and innocent mind with your infernal palimpsest, Average."

"You would have it," returned Average Jones with a smile. "And I seem to recall a lofty intimation on your part that there never was a cipher so tough but what you could rope, throw, bind, and tie a pink ribbon on its tail in record time."

"Cipher, yes," returned the other bitterly. "That thing isn't a cipher. It's an alphabetical riot. Maybe," he added hopefully, "there was some mistake in my copy?"

"Look for yourself," said Average Jones, handing him the original.

It was a singular document, this problem in letters which had come to light up the gloom of a November day for Average Jones; a stiffish sheet of paper, ornamented on one side with color prints of alluring "spinners," and on the other inscribed with an appeal, in print. Its original vehicle was an envelope, bearing a one-cent stamp, and addressed in typewriting:

Mr. William H. Robinson, The Caronia, Broadway and Evenside Ave., New York City.

The advertisement on the reverse of the sheet ran as follows:

ANGLERS—When you are looking for "Baits That Catch Fish," do you see these spinners in the store where you buy tackle? You will find here twelve baits, every one of which has a record and has literally caught tons of fish. We call them "The 12 Surety Baits." We want you to try them for casting and trolling these next two months, because all varieties of bass are particularly savage in striking these baits late in the season.

DEALERS—You want your customers to have these 12 Shoemaker "Surety Baits" that catch fish. This case will sell itself empty over and over again, for every bait is a record-breaker and they catch fish. We want you to put in one of these cases so that the anglers will not be disappointed and have to wait for baits to be ordered. It will be furnished FREE, charges prepaid, with your order for the dozen bait it contains.

The peculiar feature of the communication was that it was profusely be-pimpled with tiny projections, evidently made by thrusting a pin in from the side which bore the illustrations. The perforations were liberally scattered. Most, though not all of them, transfixed certain letters. Accepting this as indicative, Bertram had copied out all the letters thus distinguished, with the following cryptic result:

b-n-o-k-n-o-a-h-i (doubtful) i (doubtful) d-o-o-u-t-s-e-h-w h-e-w-a-l-e-w-f-i-h-i-e-l-y-a-n-u-t-t-m-a-m (doubtful) g-e-x-c-s (doubtful) s-e M-e-p-c (two punctures) t-y-w-u-s-o-m-e-r-s h-a-s 1 S-k-t-s-a-s-e-l-e-v-a-h (twice) W-y-o-u (doubtful) h-c-s-e-v-t-l-t-f-r (perforated twice) c-a-o-u-c-e-o-c (doubtful) m-t (perforated twice) n-o-h-a-e-f-o-u-w-o-r-i-t-h-i-r-e-d-w-l-l-b (Perforated three times) f-u-h-g-e-p-d-h-o-d- (doubtful) e-f-h-g-b-t-n-t.

"Yes, the copy's all right," growled Bertram. "Tell me again how you came by it."

"Robinson came here twice and missed me. Yesterday I got the note from him which you've seen, with the enclosure which has so threatened your reason. You know the rest. Perhaps you'd have done well to study the note for clues to the other document."

Something in his friend's tone made Bertram glance up suspiciously. "Let me see the note," he demanded.

Average Jones handed it to him. There was no stamp on it; it had been left by the writer. It was addressed, in rather scrawly chirography, to "A. Jones, Ad-Visor," and read:

THE CARONIA, Nov. 18. MR. A. JONES, Astor Court Temple: I have tried unsuccessfully to see you twice. Enclosed you will find the reason. Please read through it carefully. Then I am sure you will see and help me. Money is no object. I will call to-morrow at noon.

Respectfully,

WILLIAM H. ROBINSON.

"Well, I see nothing out of the ordinary in that," observed Bertram.

"Nothing?" inquired Average Jones.

Bertram read the message again. "Of course the man is rattled. That's obvious in his handwriting. Also, he has inverted one sentence in his haste and said 'read through it,' instead, of 'read it through.' Otherwise, it's ordinary enough."

"It must be vanity that keeps you from eyeglasses, Bert," Average Jones observed with a sigh. "Well, I'm afraid I set you on the wrong track, myself!"

Bertram lifted an eyebrow with an effort. "Meaning, I suppose, that you're on the tight and have solved the cipher."

"Cipher be jiggered. You were right in your opening remark. There isn't any cipher. If you read Mr. Robinson's note correctly, and if you'd had the advantage of working on the original of the advertisement as I have, you'd undoubtedly have noticed at once—"

"Thank you," murmured Bertram.

"—that fully one-third of the pin-pricks don't touch any letters at all."

"Then we should have taken the letters which lie between the holes?"

"No. The letters don't count. It's the punctures. Force your eyes to consider those alone, and you will see that the holes themselves form letters and words. Read through it carefully, as Robins directed."

He held the paper up to the light. Bertram made out in straggling characters, formed in skeleton the perforations, this legend:

ALL POINTS TO YOU TAKE THE SHORT CUT DEATH IS EASIER THAN SOME THINGS.

"Whew! That's a cheery little greeting," remarked Bertram. "But why didn't friend Robinson point it out definitely in his letter?"

"Wanted to test my capacity perhaps. Or, it may have been simply that he was too frightened and rattled to know just what he was writing."

"Know anything of him?"

"Only what the directory tells, and directories don't deal in really intimate details of biography, you know. There's quite an assortment of William H. Robinsons, but the one who lives at the Caronia appears to be a commission merchant on Pearl Street. As the Caronia is one of the most elegant and quite the most enormous of those small cities within themselves which we call apartment houses, I take it that Mr. Robinson is well-to-do, and probably married. You can ask him, yourself, if you like. He's due any moment, now."

Promptly, as befitted a business man, Mr. William H. Robinson arrived on the stroke of twelve. He was a well-made, well-dressed citizen of forty-five, who would have been wholly ordinary save for one peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool he was sweating profusely, and that, despite the fact that his light overcoat was on his arm. Not polite perspiration, be it noted, such as would have been excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek plumpness, but soul-wrung sweat, the globules whereof gathered in the grayish hollows under his eyes and assailed, not without effect, the glistening expanse of his tall white collar. He darted a glance at Bertram, then turned to Average Jones.

"I had hoped for a private interview," he said in a high piping voice.

"Mr. Bertram is my friend and business confidant."

"Very good. You—you have read it?"

"Yes."

"Then—then—then—" The visitor fumble with nerveless fingers, at his tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the lapel, tearing the button outright from the cloth. "Look what I have done," he said, staring stupidly for a moment at the button which had shot across the room. Then, to the amazed consternation of the others, he burst into tears.

Average Jones pushed a chair behind him, while Bertram brought him a glass of water. He gulped out his thanks, and, mastering himself after a moment's effort, drew a paper from his inner pocket which he placed on the desk. It was a certified check for one hundred dollars, made payable to Jones.

"There's the rest of a thousand ready, if you can help me," he said.

"We'll talk of that later," said the prospective beneficiary. "Sit tight until you're able to answer questions."

"Able now," piped the other in his shrill voice. "I'm ashamed of myself, gentlemen, but the strain I've been under— When you've heard my story—"

"Just a moment, please," interrupted Average Jones, "let me get at this my own way."

"Any way you like," returned the visitor.

"Good! Now what is it that points to you?"

"I don't know any more than you."

"What are the 'some things' that are worse than death?"

Mr. Robinson shook his head. "I haven't the slightest notion in the world."

"Nor of the 'short cut' which you are advised to take?"

"I suppose it means suicide." He paused for a moment. "They can't drive me to that—unless they drive me crazy first." He wiped the sweat from under his eyes, breathing hard.

"Who are they?"'

Mr. Robinson shook his head. In the next question the interrogator's tone altered and became more insistent.

"Have you ever called in a doctor, Mr. Robinson?"

"Only once in five years. That was when my nerves broke down—under this."

"When you do call in a doctor, is it your habit to conceal your symptoms from him?"

"Of course not. I see what you mean. Mr. Jones, I give, you my word of honor, as I hope to be saved from this persecution, I don't know any more than yourself what it means."

"Then—er—I am—er—to believe," replied Jones, drawling, as he always did when interest, in his mind, was verging on excitement, "that a simple blind threat like this—er—without any backing from your own conscience—er—could shake you—er—as this has done? Why, Mr. Robinson, the thing—er—may be—er—only a raw practical joke."

"But the others!" cried the visitor. His face changed and fell. "I believe I am going crazy," he groaned. "I didn't tell you about the others."

Diving into his overcoat pocket he drew out a packet of letters which he placed on the desk with a sort of dismal flourish.

"Read those!" he cried.

"Presently." Average Jones ran rapidly over the eight envelopes. With one exception, each bore the imprint of some firm name made familiar by extensive advertising. All the envelopes were of softish Manila paper varying in grade and hue, under one-cent stamps.

"Which is the first of the series?" he asked.

"It isn't among those. Unfortunately it was lost, by a stupid servant's mistake, pin and all."

"Pin?"

"Yes. Where I cut open the envelope—"

"Wait a moment. You say you cut it open. All these, being one-cent postage, must have come unsealed. Was the first different?"

"Yes. It had a two-cent stamp. It was a circular announcement of the Swift-Reading Encyclopedia, in a sealed envelope. There was a pin bent over the fold of the letter so you couldn't help but notice it. Its head was stuck through the blank part of the circular. Leading from it were three very small pins arranged as a pointer to the message."

"Do you remember the message?"

"Could I forget it! It was pricked out quite small on the blank fold of the paper. It said: 'Make the most of your freedom. Your time is short. Call at General Delivery, Main P. O., for your warning.' I—"

"You went there?"

"The next day."

"And found—?"

"An ordinary sealed envelope, addressed in pinpricks connected by pencil lines. The address was scrawly, but quite plain."

"Well, what did it contain?"

"A commitment blank to an insane asylum."

Average Jones absently drew out his handkerchief, elaborately whisked from his coat sleeve an imaginary speck of dust, and smiled benignantly where the dust was supposed to have been.

"Insane asylum," he murmured. "Was—er—the blank—er—filled in?"

"Only partly. My name was pricked in, and there was a specification of dementia from drug habit, with suicidal tendencies."

With a quick signal, unseen by the visitor, Average Jones opened the way to Bertram, who, in wide range of experience and study had once specialized upon abnormal mental phenomena.

"Pardon me," that gentleman put in gently, "has there ever been any dementia in your family?"

"Not as far as I know."

"Or suicidal mania?"

"All my people have died respectably in their beds," declared the visitor with some vehemence.

"Once more, if I may venture. Have you ever been addicted to any drug?"

"Never, sir."

"Now," Average Jones took up the examination, "will you tell me of any enemy who would have reason to persecute you?"

"I haven't an enemy in the world."

"You're fortunate," returned the other smiling, "but surely, some time in your career—business rivalry—family alienation—any one of a thousand causes?"

"No," answered the harassed man. "Not for me. My business runs smoothly. My relations are mostly dead. I have no friends and no enemies. My wife and I live alone, and all we ask," he added in a sudden outburst of almost childish resentment, "is to be left alone."

The inquisitor's gaze returned to the packet of letters. "You haven't complained to the post-office authorities?"

"And risk the publicity?" returned Robinson with a shudder.

"Well, give me over night with these. Oh, and I may want to 'phone you presently. You'll be at home? Thank you. Good day."

"Now," said Average Jones to Bertram, as their caller's plump back disappeared, "this looks pretty, queer to me. What did you think of our friend?"

"Scared but straight," was Bertram's verdict.

"Glad to hear it. That's my idea, too. Let's have a look at the material. We've already got the opening threat, and the General Delivery follow-up."

"Which shows, at least, that it isn't a case of somebody in the apartment house tampering with the mail."

"Not only that. It's a dodge to find out whether he got the first message. People don't always read advertisements, even when sealed, as the first message-bearing one was. Therefore, our mysterious persecutor says: 'I'll just have Robinson prove it to me, if he did get the first message, by calling for the second.' Then, after a lapse of time, he himself goes to the General Delivery, asks for a letter for Mr. William H. Robinson, finds it's gone, and is satisfied."

"Yes, and he'd be sure then that Robinson would go through all the mailed ads with a fine-tooth comb, after that. But why the pin-pricks? Just to disguise his hand?"

"Possibly. It's a fairly effectual disguise."

"Why didn't he address the envelope that way, then?"

"The address wouldn't be legible against the white background of the paper inside. On the other hand, if he'd addressed all his envelopes by pinpricks filled in with pencil lines, the post-office people might get curious and look into one. Sending threats through the mail is a serious matter."

Average Jones ran over the letter again. "Good man, Robinson!" he observed. "He's penciled the date of receipt on each one, like a fine young methodical business gent. Here we are: 'Rec'd July 14. Card from Goshorn & Co., Oriental Goods.' Message pricked in through the cardboard: 'You are suspected by your neighbors. Watch them.' Not bad for a follow-up, is it?"

"It would look like insanity, if it weren't that—that through the letters 'one increasing purpose runs,'" parodied Bertram.

"Here's one of July thirty-first; an advertisement of the Croiset Line tours to the Orient. Listen here, Bert: 'Whither can guilt flee that vengeance, may not follow?'"

"I can't quite see Robinson in the part of guilt," mused Bertram. "What's next?"

"More veiled accusation. The medium is a church society announcement of a lecture on Japanese Feudalism. Date, August seventeenth. Inscription: 'If there is no blood on your soul, why do you not face your judges?"'

"Little anti-climactic, don't you think?"

"What about this one of September seventh, then? Direct reference back to the drug habit implied in the commitment blank. It's a testimonial booklet of one of the poisonous headache dopes, Lemona Powders. The message is pricked through the cover. 'Better these than the hell of suspense.'"

"Trying the power of suggestion, eh?"

"Quite so. The second attempt at it is even more open. An advertisement of Shackleton's Safeguard Revolvers. Date, September twenty-second. Advice, by pin: 'As well this as any other way.'"

"Drug or suicide," remarked Bertram. "The man at the other end doesn't seem particular which."

"There's the insane asylum always to fall back on. Under date of October first, comes the Latherton Soap Company's impassioned appeal to self-shaving manhood. Great Caesar! No wonder poor Robinson was upset. Listen to this: 'God himself hates you.' After that there's a three-weeks respite, for there's October twenty-second on this one, Kirkby and Dunn's offering of five percent water bonds. 'The commission has its spies watching you constantly.' Calculated to inspire confidence in the most timid soul! Now we come to the soup course: Smith and Perkins' Potted Chowder. Date of November third. Er—Bert—here's something—er—really worth while, now. Hark to the song of the pin."

He read sonorously:

"Animula, vagula, Bandula, Hospes, comesque corporis; Quaenunc abibis in loca?"

"Hadrian, isn't it?" cried Bertram, in utter amazement. "Of course it is! Hadrian's terrified invocation to his own parting spirit. 'Guest and companion of my body; into what places will you now go?' Average, it's uncanny! Into what place of darkness and dread is the Demon of the Pin trying to drive poor Robinson's spirit?"

Average Jones shook his head. "'Pailidula, nudula, rigida,"' he completed the quatrain. "'Ghostpale, stark, and rigid.' He's got a grisly imagination, that pin-operator. I shouldn't care to have him on my trail."

"But Robinson!" protested Bertram feebly. "What has a plump, commonplace, twentieth-century, cutaway-wearing, flat-inhabiting Robinson to do with a Roman emperor's soul-questionings?"

"Perhaps the last entry of the lot will tell us. Palmerto's Magazine's feature announcement, received November ninth. No; it doesn't give any clue to the Latinity. It isn't bad, though. 'The darkness falls.' That's all there is to it. And enough."

"I should say the darkness did fall," confirmed Bertram. "It falls—and remains."

Average Jones pushed the collection of advertisements aside and returned to the opening phase of the problem, the fish-bait circular which Robinson had mailed him. So long after, that Bertram hardly recognized it as a response to his last remark, the investigator drawled out:

"Not such—er—impenetrable darkness. In fact,—er—Eureka, or words to that effect. Bert, when does the bass season end?"

"November first, hereabouts, I believe."

"The postmark on the envelope that carried this advertisement to our friend advises the use of the baits for 'these next two months.' Queer time to be using bass-lures, after the season is closed. Bert, it's a pity I can't waggle my ears."

"Waggle your ears! For heaven's sake, why?"

"Because then I'd be such a perfect jackass that I could win medals at a show. I ought to have guessed it at first glance, from the fact that the advertisement couldn't well have been mailed to Robinson originally, anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Because he's not in the sporting-goods business, and the advertisement is obviously addressed to the retail trade. Don't you remember: it offers a showcase, free. What does a man living in an apartment want of a show-case to keep artificial bait in? What we—er—need here is—er—steam."

A moment's manipulation of the radiator produced a small jet. In this Average Jones held the envelope. The stamp curled tip and dropped off. Beneath it were the remains of a small portion of a former postmark.

"I thought so," murmured Average Jones.

"Remailed!" exclaimed Bertram.

"Remailed," corroborated his friend. "I expect we'll find the others the same."

One by one he submitted the envelopes to the steam bath. Each of them, as the stamp was peeled off, exhibited more or less fragmentary signs of a previous cancellation.

"Careless work," criticized Average Jones. "Every bit of the mark should have been removed, instead of trusting to the second stamp to cover what little was left, by shifting it a bit toward the center of the envelope. Look; you can see on this one where the original stamp was peeled off. On this the traces of erasure are plain enough. That's why Manila paper was selected: it's easier to erase from."

"Is Robinson faking?" asked Bertram. "Or has some one been rifling his waste-basket?"

"That would mean an accomplice in the house, which would be dangerous. I think it was done at longer range. As for the question of our friend's faking in his claim of complete ignorance of all this, I propose to find that out right now."

Drawing the telephone to him, he called the Caronia apartments. Thus it was that Mr. William H. Robinson, for two unhappy minutes, profoundly feared that at last he had really lost his mind. This is the conversation in which he found himself implicated.

"Hello! Mr. Robinson? This is Mr. A. Jones. You hear me?"

"Yes, Mr. Jones. What is it?"

"Integer vitae, scelerisque-purus."

"I—I—beg your pardon!"

"Non egit Mauris jaculis nec arcu."

"This is Mr. Robinson: Mr. William H. Rob—"

"Nec venenatis grasida sag—Hello! Central, don't cut off! Mr. Robinson, do you understand me?"

"God knows, I don't!"

"If he doesn't recognize the Integer Vitae," said Average Jones in a swift aside to Bertram, "he certainly wouldn't know the more obscure Latin of the late Mr. Hadrian."

"One more question, Mr. Robinson. Is there, in all your acquaintance, any person who never goes out without an attendant? Take time to think, now."

"Why—why—why," stuttered the appalled subject of this examination, and fell into silence. From the depths of the silence he presently exhumed the following: "I did have a paralytic cousin who always went out in a wheeled chair. But she's dead."

"And there's no one else?"

"No. I'm quite sure."

"That's all. Good-by."

"Thank Heaven! Good-by."

"What was that about an attendant?" inquired Bertram, as his friend replaced the receiver.

"Oh, I've just a hunch that the sender of those messages doesn't go out unaccompanied."

"Insane? Or semi-insane? It does rather look like delusional paranoia."

As nearly as imperfect humanity may, Average Jones appeared to be smiling indulgently at the end of his own nose.

"Dare say you're right—er—in part, Bert. But I've also a hunch that our man Robinson is himself the delusion as well as the object."

"I wish you wouldn't be cryptic, Average," said his friend pathetically. "There's been enough of that without your gratuitously adding to the sum of human bewilderment.",

Average Jones scribbled a few words on a pad, considered, amended, and handed the result over to Bertram, who read:

WANTED—Professional envelope eraser to remove marks from used envelopes. Experience essential. Apply at once—A. Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple."

"Would it enlighten your gloom to see that in every New York and Brooklyn paper to-morrow?" inquired its inventor.

"Not a glimmer."

"We'll give this ad a week's repetition if necessary, before trying more roundabout measures. As soon as I have heard from it I'll drop in at the club and we'll write—that is to say, compose a letter."

"To whom?"

"Oh, that I don't know yet. When I do, you'll see me."

Three days later Average Jones entered the Cosmic Club, with that twinkling up-turn of the mouth corners which, with him, indicated satisfactory accomplishment.

"Really, Bert," he remarked, seeking out his languid friend, in the laziest corner of the large divan.

"You'd be surprised to know how few experienced envelope erasers there are in four millions of population. Only seven people answered that advertisement, and they were mostly tyros."

"Then you didn't get your man?"

"It was a woman. The fifth applicant. Got a pin about you?"

Bertram took a pearl from his scarf.

"That's good. It will make nice, bold, inevitable sort of letters. Come over here to this desk."

For a few moments he worked at a sheet of, paper with the pin, then threw it down in disgust.

"This sort of thing requires practice," he muttered. "Here, Bert, you're cleverer with your fingers than I. You take it, and I'll dictate."

Between them, after several failures, they produced a fair copy of the following:

"Mr. Alden Honeywell will choose between making explanation to the post-office authorities or calling at 3:30 P. m. to-morrow on A. Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple."

This Average Jones enclosed in an envelope which he addressed in writing to Alden Honeywell, Esq., 550 West Seventy-fourth Street, City, afterward pin-pricking the letters in outline. "Just for moral effect," he explained. "In part this ought to give him a taste of the trouble he made for poor Robinson. You'll be there to-morrow, Bert?"

"Watch me!" replied that gentleman with unwonted emphasis. "But will Alden Honeywell, Esquire?"

"Surely. Also Mr. William H. Robinson, of the Caronia. Note that 'of the Caronia.' It's significant."

At three-thirty the following afternoon three men were waiting in Average Jones' inner office. Average Jones sat at his desk sedulously polishing his left-hand fore-knuckle with the tennis callous of his right palm. Bertram lounged gracefully in the big chair. Mr. Robinson fidgeted. There was an atmosphere of tension in the room. At three-forty there came a tap-tapping across the floor of the outer room, and a knock at the door brought them all to their feet. Average Jones threw the door open, took the man who stood outside by the arm, and pushing a chair toward him, seated him in it.

The new-comer was an elderly man dressed with sober elegance. In his scarf was a scarab of great value; on his left hand a superb signet ring. He carried a heavy, gold-mounted stick. His face was curiously divided against itself. The fine calm forehead and the deep setting of the widely separate eyes gave an impression of intellectual power and balance. But the lower part of the face was mere wreckage; the chin quivering and fallen, from self-indulgence, the fine lines of the nose coarsened by the spreading nostrils; the mouth showing both the soft contours of sensuality and the hard, fine line of craft and cruelty. The man's eyes were unholy. They stared straight before him, and were dead. With his entrance there was infused in the atmosphere a sense of something venomous. "Mr. Alden Honeywell?" said Average Jones.

"Yes." The voice had refinement and calm.

"I want to introduce you to Mr. William H. Robinson."

The new-comer's head turned slowly to his right shoulder then back. His eyes remained rigid.

"Why, the man's blind!" burst out Mr. Robins in his piping voice.

"Blind!" echoed Bertram. "Did you know this Average?"

"Of course. The pin-pricks showed it. And the letter mailed to Mr. Robinson at the General Delivery, which, if you remember, had the address penciled in from pin-holes."

"When you have quite done discussing my personal misfortune," said Honeywell patiently, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me which is William Robinson."

"I am," returned the owner of that name. "And do you be good enough to tell me why you hound me with your hellish threats."

"That is not William Robinson's voice!" said the blind man. "Who are you?"

"William H. Robinson."

"Not William Honeywell Robinson!"

"No; William Hunter Robinson."

"Then why am I brought here?"

"To make a statement for publication in to-morrow morning's newspaper," returned Average Jones crisply.

"Statement? Is this a yellow journal trap?"

"As a courtesy to Mr. Robinson, I'll explain. How long have you lived in the Caronia, Mr. Robinson?"

"About eight months."

"Then, some three or four months before you moved in, another William H. Robinson lived there for a short time. His middle name was Honeywell. He is a cousin, and an object of great solicitude to this gentleman here. In fact, he is, or will be, the chief witness against Mr. Honeywell in his effort to break the famous Holden Honeywell will, disposing of some ten million dollars. Am I right, Mr. Honeywell?"

"Thus far," replied the blind man composedly.

"Five years ago William Honeywell Robinson became addicted to a patent headache 'dope.' It ended, as such habits do, in insanity. He was confined two years, suffering from psychasthenia, with suicidal melancholia and delusion of persecution. Then he was released, cured, but with a supersensitive mental balance."

"Then the messages were intended to drive him out of his mind again," said Bertram in sudden enlightenment. "What a devil!"

"Either that, or to impel him, by suggestion, to suicide or to revert to the headache powders, which would have meant the asylum again. Anything to put him out of the way, or to make his testimony incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-lunatic returned from Europe a year ago, our friend Honeywell here, in some way located him at the Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through a letter broker who deals with the rag and refuse collectors, he got all the second-hand mail from the Caronia. Meantime, William Honeywell Robinson had moved away, and as chance would have it, William Hunter Robinson moved in, receiving the pinprick letters which, had they reached their goal, would probably have produced the desired effect."

"If they drove a sane man nearly crazy, what wouldn't they have done to one whose mind wasn't quite right!" cried the wronged Robinson.

"But since Mr. Honeywell is blind," said Bertram, "how could he see to erase the cancellations?"

"Ah! That's what I asked myself. Obviously, he couldn't. He'd have to get that done for him. Presumably he'd get some stranger to do it. That's why I advertised for a professional eraser who was experienced, judging that it would fetch the person who had done Honeywell's work."

"Is there any such thing as a professional envelope eraser?" asked Bertram.

"No. So a person of experience in this line would be almost unique. I was sure to find the right one, if he or she saw my advertisement. As a matter of fact, it turned out to be an unimaginative young woman who has told me all about her former employment with Mr. Honeywell, apparently with no thought that there was anything strange in erasing cancellations from hundreds of envelopes—for Honeywell was cautious enough not to confine her to the Robinson mail alone—and then pasting on stamps to remail them."

"You appear to have followed out my moves with some degree of acumen, Mr.—er—Jones," said the blind schemer suavely.

"Yet I might not have solved your processes easily if you had not made one rather—if you will pardon me, stupid mistake."

For the first time, the man's bloated lips shook. His evil pride of intellectuality was stung.

"You lie!" he said hastily. "I do not make mistakes."

"No? Well, have it as you will. The point that you are to sign here a statement, which I shall read to you before these witnesses, announcing for publication the withdrawal of your contest for the Honeywell millions."

"And if I decline?"

"The painful necessity will be mine of turning over these instructive documents to the United States postal authorities. But not before giving them to the newspapers. How would you look in court, in view of this attempt to murder a fellow man's reason?"

Mr. Honeywell had now gained his composure. "You are right," he assented. "You seem to have a singular faculty for being right. Be careful it does not fail you—sometime."

"Thank you," returned Average Jones. "Now you will listen, please, all of you."

He read the brief document, placed it before the blind man, and set a pin between his finger and thumb. "Sign there," he said.

Honeywell smiled as he pricked in his name.

"For identification, I suppose," he said. "Am I to assign no cause to the newspapers for my sudden action?"

A twinkle of malice appeared in Average Jones' eye.

"I would suggest waning mental acumen," he said.

The blind man winced palpably as he rose to his feet. "That is the second time you have taunted me on that. Kindly tell me my mistake."

Average Jones led him to the door and opened it.

"Your mistake," he drawled as he sped his parting guest into the grasp of a waiting attendant, "was—er—in not remembering that—er—you mustn't fish for bass in November."



CHAPTER VIII. BIG PRINT

In the Cosmic Club Mr. Algernon Spofford was a figure of distinction. Amidst the varied, curious, eccentric, brilliant, and even slightly unbalanced minds which made the organization unique, his was the only wholly stolid and stupid one. Club tradition declared that he had been admitted solely for the beneficent purpose of keeping the more egotistic members in a permanent and pleasing glow of superiority. He was very rich, but otherwise quite harmless. In an access of unappreciated cynicism, Average Jones had once suggested to him, as a device for his newly acquired coat-of-arms, "Rocks et Praeterea Nihil."

But the "praeterea nihil" was something less than fair to Mr. Spofford, with whom it was not strictly a case of "nothing further" besides his "rocks". Ambition, the vice of great souls, burned within Spofford's pigeon-breast. He longed to distinguish himself in the line of endeavor of his friend Jones and was prone to proffer suggestions, hints, and even advice, to the great tribulation of the recipient.

Hence it was with misgiving that the Ad-Visor opened the door of his sanctum to Mr. Spofford, on a harsh December noon. But the misgivings were supplanted by pleased surprise when the caller laid in his hand a clipping from a small country town paper, to this effect:

RANSOM—Lost lad from Harwick not drowned or harmed. Retained for ransom. Safe and sound to parents for $50,000. Write, Mortimer Morley, General Delivery, N. Y. Post-Office.

"Thought that'd catch you," chuckled Mr. Spofford, in great self-congratulation. "'Jones'll see into this,' I says to myself. 'If he don't, I'll explain.' Somethin' to that, ay?"

Average Jones looked from the advertisement to the vacuous smile of Mr. Algernon Spofford. "Oh, you'll explain, will you?" he said softly. "Well, the thing I'd like to have explained is—come over here to the window a minute, will you, Algy?"

Mr. Spofford came, and gazed down upon a dispiriting area of rain-swept street and bedraggled wayfarers.

"See that ten-story office building across the way?" pursued Average Jones. "What would you do if, coming in here at midnight, you were to see twenty-odd rats ooze out of that building and disperse about their business?"

"I—I'd quit," said the startled promptly.

"That's the obvious solution," retorted "but my question wasn't intended to elicit a brand of music-hall humor."

Spofford contemplated the building uneasily. "I don't know what you're up to, Average," he complained. "Is it a catch?"

"No; it's a test case. What would you do?"

"I'd think it was Billy-be-dashed queer," answered Spofford with profound conviction.

"You're getting on," said Jones tartly. "And next?"

"Ay? How do I know? What're you devilin' me this way for?"

"You wouldn't call a policeman?"

"No," said Spofford, staring.

"You wouldn't hustle around and 'phone Central?"

"Bosh!"

"Yet if any one told you you hadn't the sense a policeman, you'd resent it."

"Of course, I would!"

"Well, Jimmy McCue, the night special, who patrols past the corner, saw that very thing happen a few nights ago at the Sterriter Building. Knowing that rats don't go out at midnight for a saunter, two dozen strong, he began to suspect."

"Suspect what?" growled Spofford.

"That there must be some abnormal cause for so abnormal a proceeding. Think, now, Algy."

"I've heard of rats leavin' a sinkin' ship. The building might have been sinkin'," suggested the visitor hopefully.

"Is that the best you can do? I'll give you one more try."

"I know," said Spofford. "A cat."

"On my soul," declared Average Jones, gazing at his club-mate with increased interest, "you're the most remarkable specimen of inverted mentality I've ever encountered. D'you think a cat habitually rounds up two dozen rats and then chivies 'em out into the street for sport? McCue didn't have any cat theory. He figured that when rats come out of a place that way the place is afire. So he turned in an alarm and saved a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar building."

"Umph!" grunted Spofford. "Well, what's that got to do with the advertisement I brought you?"

"Nothing in the world, directly. I'm merely trying to figure out, in my own way, how a mind like yours could see under the surface print into the really interesting peculiarity of this clipping. Now I know that your mind didn't do anything of the sort. Come on, now, Algy, who sent this to you?"

"Cousin of mine up in Harwick. I wish you weren't so Billy-be-dashed sharp, Average. I used to visit in Harwick, so they asked me to get you interested in Bailey Prentice's case. He's the lost boy."

"You've done it. Now tell me all you know."

Spofford produced a letter which gave the outlines of the case. Bailey Prentice's disappearance it was set forth, was the lesser of two simultaneous phenomena which violently jarred the somnolent New England village of Harwick from its wonted calm. The greater was the "Harwick meteor." At ten-fifteen on the night of December twelfth, the streets being full of people coming from the moving picture show, there was a startling concussion from the overhanging clouds and the astounded populace saw a ball of flame plunging earthward, to the northwest of the town, and waxing in intensity as it fell. Darkness succeeded. But, within a minute, a lurid radiance rose and spread in the night. The aerial bolt had gone crashing through an old barn on the Tuxall place, setting it afire.

Bailey Prentice was among the very few who did not go to the fire. Taken in connection with the fact that he was fourteen years old and very thoroughly a boy, this, in itself, was phenomenal. In the excitement of the occasion, however, his absence was not noted. But when, on the following morning, the Reverend Peter Prentice, going up to call his son, found the boy's room empty and the bed untouched, the second sensation of the day was launched. Bailey Prentice had, quite simply, vanished.

Some one offered the theory that, playing truant from the house while his father was engaged in work below stairs, he had been overwhelmed and perhaps wholly consumed by a detached fragment from the fiery visitant. This picturesque suggestion found many supporters until, on the afternoon of December fourteenth, a coat and waistcoat were found on the seashore a mile north of the village. The Reverend Mr. Prentice identified the clothes as his son's. Searching parties covered the beach for miles, looking for the body. Preparations were made for the funeral services, when a new and astonishing factor was injected into the situation. An advertisement, received by mail from New York, with stamps affixed to the "copy" to pay for its insertion, appeared in the local paper.

"And here's the advertisement," concluded Mr. Algernon Spofford, indicating the slip of paper which he had turned over to Average Jones. "And if you are going up to Harwick and need help there, why I've got time to spare."

"Thank you, Algy," replied Average Jones gravely. "But I think you'd better stay here in case anything turns up at this end. Suppose," he added with an inspiration, "you trace this Mortimer Morley through the general delivery."

"All right," agreed Spofford innocently satisfied with this wild-goose errand. "Lemme know if anything good turns up."

Average Jones took train for Harwick, and within a few hours was rubbing his hands over an open fire in the parsonage, whose stiff and cheerless aspect bespoke the lack of a woman's humanizing touch for the Reverend Mr. Prentice was a widower. Overwrought with anxiety and strain, the clergyman, as soon as he had taken his coat, began a hurried, inconsequential narrative, broke off, tried again, fell into an inextricable confusion of words, and, dropping his head in his hands, cried:

"I can't tell you. It is all a hopeless jumble."

"Come!" said the younger man encouragingly. "Comfort yourself with the idea that your son is alive, at any rate."

"But how can I be sure, even of that?"

Average Jones glanced at a copy of the advertisement which he held. "I think we can take Mr. Morley's word so far."

"Even so; fifty thousand dollars ransom!" said the minister, and stopped with a groan.

"Nonsense!" said Average Jones heartily. "That advertisement counts for nothing. Professional kidnappers do not select the sons of impecunious ministers for their prey. Nor do they give addresses through which they may be found. You can dismiss the advertisement as a blind; the second blind, in fact."

"The second?"

"Certainly. The first was the clothing on the shore. It was put there to create the impression that your son was drowned."

"Yes; we all supposed that he must be."

"By what possible hypothesis a boy should be supposed to take off coat and waistcoat and wade off-shore into a winter sea is beyond my poor powers of conjecture," said the other. "No. Somebody 'planted' the clothes there."

"It seems far-fetched to me," said the Reverend Mr. Prentice doubtfully. "Who would have any motive for doing such a thing?"

"That is what we have to find out. What time did your son go to his room the night of his disappearance?"

"Earlier than usual, as I remember. A little before nine o'clock."

"Any special reason for his going up earlier?"

"He wanted to experiment with a new fishing outfit just given him for his birthday."

"I see. Will you take me to his room?"

They mounted to the boy's quarters, which overlooked the roof of the side porch from a window facing north. The charred ruins of a barn about, half a mile away were plainly visible through this window.

"The barn which the meteor destroyed," said the Reverend Mr. Prentice, pointing it out.

One glance was all that Average Jones bestowed upon a spot which, for a few days, had been of national interest. His concern was inside the room. A stand against the wall was littered with bits of shining mechanism. An unjointed fishing-rod lay on the bed. Near at hand were a small screw-driver and a knife with a broken blade.

"Were things in this condition when you came to call Bailey in the morning and found him gone?" asked Average Jones.

"Nothing has been touched," said the clergyman in a low voice.

Average Jones straightened up and stretched himself languidly. His voice when he spoke again took on the slow drawl of boredom. One might have thought that he had lost all interest in the case but for the thoughtful pucker of the broad forehead which belied his halting accents.

"Then—er—when Bailey left here he hadn't any idea of—er—running away."

"I don't follow you, Mr. Jones."

"Psychology," said Average Jones. "Elementary psychology. Here's your son's new reel. A normal boy doesn't abandon a brand-new fad when he runs away. It isn't in boy nature. No, he was taking this reel apart to study it when some unexpected occurrence checked him and drew him outside."

"The meteor."

"I made some inquiries in the village on my way, up. None of the hundreds of people who turned out for the fire, remembers seeing Bailey about."

"That is true."

"The meteor fell at ten-fifteen. Bailey went upstairs before nine. Allow half an hour for taking apart the reel. I don't believe he'd have been longer at it. So, it's probable that he was out of the house before the meteor fell."

"I should have heard him go out of the front door."

"That is, perhaps, why he went out of the window," observed Average Jones, indicating certain marks on the sill. Swinging his feet over, he stepped upon the roof of the porch, and peered at the ground below.

"And down the lightning rod," he added.

For a moment he stood meditating. "The ground is now frozen hard," he said presently. "Bailey's footprints where he landed are deeply marked. Therefore the soil must have been pretty soft at the time."

"Very," agreed the clergyman. "There had been a three-day downpour, up to the evening of Bailey's disappearance. About nine o'clock the wind shift to the northeast, and everything froze hard. There has been no thaw since."

"You seem very clear on these points, Mr. Prentice."

"I noted them specially, having in mind to write a paper on the meteorite for the Congregationalist."

"Ah! Perhaps you could tell me, then, how soon after the meteor's fall, the barn yonder was discovered to be afire?"

"Almost instantly. It was in full blaze within very short time after."

"How short? Five minutes or so?"

"Not so much. Certainly not more than two."

"H'm! Peculiar! Ra-a-a-ather peculiar." drawled Average Jones. "Particularly in view of the weather."

"In what respect?"

"In respect to a barn, water-soaked by a three-day rain bursting into flame like tinder."

"It had not occurred to me. But the friction and heat of the meteorite must have been extremely great."

"And extremely momentary except as to the lower floor, and the fire should have taken some time to spread from that. However, to turn to other matters—" He swung himself over the edge of the roof and went briskly down the lightning rod. Across the frozen ground he moved, with his eyes on the soil, and presently called up to his, host:

"At any rate, he started across lots in the direction of the barn. Will you come down and let me in?"

Back in the study, Average Jones sat meditating a few moments. Presently he asked:

"Did you go to the spot where your son's clothes were found?"

"Yes. Some time after."

"Where was it?"

"On the seashore, some half a mile to the east of the Tuxall place, and a little beyond."

"Is there a roadway from the Tuxall place to the spot?"

"No; I believe not. But one could go across the fields and through the barn to the old deserted roadway."

"Ah. There's an old roadway, is there?"

"Yes. It skirts the shore to join Boston Pike about three miles up."

"And how far from this roadway were your son's clothes found?"

"Just a few feet."

"H'm. Any tracks in the roadway?"

"Yes. I recall seeing some buggy tracks and being surprised, because no one ever drives that way."

"Then it is conceivable that your son's clothes might have been tossed from a passing vehicle, to the spot where they were discovered."

"Conceivable, certainly. But I can see no grounds for such a conjecture."

"How far down the road, in this direction, did tracks run?"

"Not beyond the fence-bar opening from the Tuxall field, if that is what you mean."

"It is, exactly. Do you know this Tuxall?"

"Hardly at all. He is a recent comer among us."

"Well, I shall probably want to make his acquaintance, later."

"Have a care, then. He is very jealous of his precious meteor, and guards the ruins of the barn, where it lies, with a shot gun."

"Indeed? He promises to be an interesting study. Meantime, I'd like to look at your son's clothes."

From a closet Mr. Prentice brought out a coat and waistcoat of the "pepper-and-salt" pattern which is sold by the hundreds of thousands the whole country over. These the visitor examined carefully. The coat was caked with mud, particularly thick on one shoulder. He called the minister's attention to it.

"That would be from lying wet on the shore," said the Reverend Mr. Prentice.

"Not at all. This is mud, not sand. And it's ground or pressed in. Has any one tampered with these since they were found?"

"I went through the pockets."

Average Jones frowned. "Find anything?"

"Nothing of importance. A handkerchief, some odds and ends of string—oh, and a paper with some gibberish on it."

"What was the nature of this gibberish?"

"Why it might have been some sort of boyish secret code, though it was hardly decipherable enough to judge from. I remember some flamboyant adjectives referring to something three feet high. I threw the paper into the waste-basket."

Turning that receptacle out on the table, Average Jones discovered in the debris a sheet of cheap, ruled paper, covered with penciled words in print characters. Most of these had been crossed out in favor of other words or sentences, which in turn had been "scratched." Evidently the writer had been toilfully experimenting toward some elegance or emphasis of expression, which persistently eluded him. Amidst the wreck and ruin of rhetoric, however, one phrase stood out clear:

"Stupendous scientific sensation."

Below this was a huddle and smudge of words, from which adjectives darted out like dim flame amidst smoke. "Gigantic" showed in its entity followed by an unintelligible erasure. At the end this line was the legend "3 Feet High." "Verita Visitor," appeared below, and beyond it, what seemed to be the word "Void." And near the foot of the sheet the student of all this chaos could make faintly but unmistakably, "Marvelous Man-l—" the rest of the word being cut off by a broad black smear. "Monster 3 Feet." The remainder was wholly undecipherable.

Average Jones looked up from this curio, and there was a strange expression in the eyes which met the minister's.

"You—er—threw this in the—er—waste-basket." he drawled. "In which pocket was it?"

"The waistcoat. An upper one, I believe. There was a pencil there, too."

"Have you an old pair of shoes of Bailey's," asked the visitor abruptly.

"Why, I suppose so. In the attic somewhere."

"Please bring them to me."

The Reverend Mr. Prentice left the room. No sooner had the door closed after him than Average Jones jumped out of his chair stripped to his shirt, caught up the pepper-and-salt waistcoat, tried it on and buttoned it across his chest without difficulty; then thrust his arm into the coat which went with it, and wormed his way, effortfully, partly into that. He laid it aside only when he had determined that he could get it no farther on. He was clothed and in his right garments when the Reverend Mr. Prentice returned with a much-worn pair of shoes.

"Will these do?" he asked.

Average Jones hardly gave them the courtesy of a glance. "Yes," he said indifferently, and set them aside. "Have you a time-table here?"

"You're going to leave?" cried the clergyman, in sharp disappointment.

"In just half an hour," replied the visitor, holding his finger on the time-table.

"But," cried Mr. Prentice, "that is the train back to New York."

"Exactly."

"And you're not going to see Tuxall?"

"No."

"Nor to examine the place where the clothes were found?"

"Haven't time."

"Mr. Jones, are you giving up the attempt to discover what became of my boy?"

"I know what became of him."

The minister put out a hand and grasped the back of a chair for support. His lips parted. No sound came from them. Average Jones carefully folded the paper of "gibberish" and tucked it away in his card case.

"Bailey has been carried away by two people in a buggy. They were strangers to the town. He was injured and unconscious. They still have him. Incidentally, he has seriously interfered with a daring and highly ingenious enterprise. That is all I can tell you at present."

The clergyman found his voice. "In heaven, Mr. Jones," he cried, "tell me who and what these people are."

"I don't know who they are. I do know what they are. But it can do no good to tell you the one until I can find out the other. Be sure of one thing, Bailey is in no further danger. You'll hear from me as soon as I have anything definite to report."

With that the Reverend Mr. Prentice had to be content; that and a few days later, a sheet of letter-paper bearing the business imprint of the Ad-Visor, and enclosing this advertisement:

WANTED—3 Ft. type for sensational Bill Work. Show samples. Delivery in two weeks. A. Jones, Ad-Visor, Court Temple, N. Y. City.

Had the Reverend Mr. Prentice been a reader of journals devoted to the art and practice of printing he might have observed that message widely scattered to the trade. It was answered by a number of printing shops. But, as the answers came in to Average Jones, he put them aside, because none of the seekers for business was able to "show samples." Finally there came a letter from Hoke and Hollins of Rose Street. They would like Mr. Jones to call and inspect some special type upon which they were then at work. Mr. Jones called. The junior member received him.

"Quite providential, Mr. Jones," he said. "We're turning out some single-letter, hand-made type of just the size you want. Only part of the alphabet, however. Isn't that a fine piece of lettering!"

He held up an enormous M to the admiration of his visitor.

"Excellent!" approved Average Jones. "I'd like to see other letters; A, for example."

Mr. Hollins produced a symmetrical A.

"And now, an R, if you please; and perhaps a V."

Mr. Hollis looked at his visitor with suspicion. "You appear to be selecting the very letters which I have," he remarked.

"Those which—er—would make up the—er—legend, 'Marvelous Man-Like Monster," drawled Average Jones.

"Then you know the Farleys,"' said the print man.

"The Flying Farleys?" said Average Jones. "They used to do ascensions with firework trimmings, didn't they? No; I don't exactly know them. But I'd like to."

"That's another matter," retorted Mr. Hollins, annoyed at having betrayed himself. "This type is decidedly a private—even a secret-order. I had no right to say anything about it or the customers who ordered it."

"Still, you could see that a letter left here for them reached them, I suppose."

After some hesitation, the other agreed. Average Jones sat down to the composition of an epistle, which should be sufficiently imperative without being too alarming. Having completed this delicate task to his satisfaction he handed the result to Hollins.

"If you haven't already struck off a line, you might do so," he suggested. "I've asked the Farleys for a print of it; and I fancy they'll be sending for one."

Leaving the shop he went direct to a telegraph office, whence he dispatched two messages to Harwick. One was to the Reverend Peter Prentice, the other was to the local chief of police. On the following afternoon Mr. Prentice trembling in the anteroom of the Ad-Visor's. With the briefest word of greeting Average Jones led him into his private office, where a clear-eyed boy, with his head swathed in bandages sat waiting. As the Ad-Visor closed the door after him, he heard the breathless, boyish "Hello, father," merged in the broken cry of the Reverend Peter Prentice.

Five minutes he gave father and son. When he returned to the room, carrying a loose roll of reddish paper, he was followed by a strange couple. The woman was plumply muscular. Her attractive face was both defiant and uneasy. Behind her strode a wiry man of forty. His chief claim to notice lay in an outrageously fancy waistcoat, which was ill-matched with his sober, commonplace, "pepper-and-salt" suit.

"Mr. and Mrs. Farley, the Reverend Mr. Prentice," said Average Jones in introduction.

"The strangers in the wagon?" asked the clergyman quickly.

"The same," admitted the woman briefly.

The Reverend Mr. Prentice turned upon Farley. "Why did you want to steal my boy away?" he demanded.

"Didn't want to. Had to," replied that gentleman succinctly.

"Let's do this in order," suggested Average Jones. "The principal actor's story first. Speak up, Bailey."

"Don't know my own story," said the boy with a grin. "Only part of it. Mrs. Farley's been awful good to me, takin' care of me an' all that. But she wouldn't tell me how I got hurt or where I was when I woke up."

"Naturally. Well, we must piece it out among us. Now, Bailey, you were working over your reel the night the meteor fell, when—"

"What meteor? I don't know anything about a meteor."

"Of course you don't," said Average Jones laughing. "Stupid of me. For the moment I had forgotten that you were out of the world then. Well, about nine o'clock of the night you got the reel, you looked out of your window and saw a queer light over at the Tuxall place."

"That's right. But say, Mr. Jones, how do you know about the light?"

"What else but a light could you have seen, on a pitch-black night?" counter-questioned Average Jones with a smile. "And it must have been something unusual, or you wouldn't have dropped everything to go to it."

"That's what!" corroborated the boy. "A kind of flame shot up from the ground. Then it spread a little. Then it went out. And there were people running around it."

"Ah! Some one must have got careless with the oil," observed Average Jones.

"That fool Tuxall!" broke in Farley with an oath. "It was him gummed the whole game."

"Mr. Tuxall, I regret to say," remarked Average Jones, "has left for parts unknown, so the Harwick authorities inform me, probably foreseeing a charge of arson."

"Arson?" repeated the Reverend Mr. Prentice in astonishment.

"Of course. Only oil and matches could have made a barn flare up, after a three-days' rain, as his did. Now, Bailey, to continue. You ran across the fields to the Tuxall place and went around—let me see; the wind had shifted to the northeast—yes; to the northeast of the barn and quite a distance away. There you saw a man at work in his shirt."

"Well-I'll-be-jiggered!" said the boy in measured tones. "Where were you hiding, Mr. Jones?"

"Not behind the tree there, anyway," returned the Ad-Visor with a chuckle. "There is a tree there, I suppose?"

"Yes; and there was something alive tied up in it with a rope."

"Well, not exactly alive," returned Average Jones, "though the mistake is a natural one."

"I tell you, I know," persisted Bailey. "While Mr. and Mrs. Farley were workin' over some kind of a box, I shinned up the tree."

"Bold young adventurer! And what did you find?"

"One of the limbs was shakin' and thrashin'. I crawled out on it. I guess it was kind o' crazy me, but I was goin' to find out what was what if I broke my neck. There was a rope tied to it, and some big thing up above pullin' and jerkin' at it, tryin' to get away. Pretty soon, Mr. and Mrs. Farley came almost under me. He says: 'Is Tuxall all ready?' and she says: 'He thinks we ought to wait half an hour. The street'll be full of folks then. Then he says: 'Well, I hate to risk it, but maybe it's better.' just then, the rope gave a twist and came swingin' over on me, and knocked me right off the limb. I gave a yell and then I landed. Next I knew I was in bed. And that's all."

"Now I'll take up the wondrous tale," said Average Jones. "The Farleys, naturally discomfited by Bailey's abrupt and informal arrival, were in a quandary. Here was an inert boy on their hands. He might be dead, which would be bad. Or, he might be alive, which would be worse, if they left him."