“Ah!” said Drew. “Photos don’t lie. Now we’re getting there! That’s the first light I’ve seen in some time. It clears the case of the supernatural. It puts it where it belongs—in the material world of flesh and blood and hate and revenge.”

“It does that!” corroborated the expert, siding with Drew. “Now,” he added good-naturedly, “I’ll help out some more. I’ve got a book of notations made in the library. I spent two hours there this morning. I flashed every print I could see. There’s some of the butler on the bottle and the tray. There’s a number on the polished table. There are at least six on the door knob, to say nothing of the smashed panel. I suppose yours is among them, inspector?”

Drew held out his right hand. “Look and see,” he suggested with a short laugh. “I’ve never been printed in my life.”

“That won’t be necessary. These three prints which correspond with the ones you took in the booth, settle the matter. There’s no record of this fellow in our cabinet. But—he was in that library!”

“Where did he leave his prints?” asked Drew.

Pope consulted a page of his note book. He thumbed over another page, thrust his finger between the sheet and turned to the photos. “What’s the number on the back of that one?” he asked, nodding toward the topmost photograph.

“Ten,” said Drew, turning it over and studying a penciled number.

“Ten,” repeated the expert. “That is a print which was flashed on the corner of the little table which was overturned when Stockbridge fell to the floor after being shot.”

“And the same man made it who made my prints in the booth?”

“The same!” declared the expert dryly.

“I don’t see where you two are getting,” said Fosdick. “How could a man get into that library, shoot the old millionaire, get out again and go over to a slot-booth?”

“He might have been in the slot-booth first,” suggested Drew with slow smiling. “From the booth he went to the house and killed Stockbridge.”

“The fact is established,” exclaimed Pope, “that the man you are after was in the library and in the booth. That’s all you can say. There’s no way to determine the exact hour these two sets of prints were made.”

Drew lifted a second print. “No. sixteen,” he said, turning to the expert. “Where was that made?”

Pope consulted his book. He glanced up at Fosdick, who was ill at ease over the development in the case. “That,” he said, swinging his eyes till they met Drew’s, “that was made on the hardwood floor directly under Stockbridge’s body. We found the print, with others of the little finger and middle finger when the coroner moved the corpse!”

The detective stared at Pope. “You mean,” he said shrewdly, “that the man who made the prints in the booth and on the little table, also was down on his knees arranging Stockbridge’s body, or doing something like that?”

“He made a distinct impression on the floor despite the fact that the body was moved over it. The polish and the varnish helped to hold this impression. I venture to say that it is there yet.”

“Good!” said Drew. “I may have a look at it. I never went after prints in my investigation. I left that to men who knew their business—like yourself.”

Pope smiled. He glanced at his book for a third time. “What’s the number of that last print?” he asked.

“Forty-four!”

“Taken from the edge of the heavy door which was broken down by Delaney, I guess. Looks like his work.”

“I had a hand in that,” admitted Drew.

“This print was close to the knob. There’s none like it on the knob itself.”

“Umph!” declared Fosdick.

Drew glanced at the commissioner. He smiled as he laid his hand on Fosdick’s shoulder. “I’ve got you to thank,” he said, “for letting me use the brains and facilities of the police department. I think it clears the case in a remarkable manner.”

“How?” asked the commissioner.

“Well for one thing,” Drew said, lifting the third photo. “For one thing, we know that our man passed through the doorway before or after the murder. He was in the library. He was in that booth which is a half mile or more away from the mansion.”

“I’ll grant you that, but what does it prove?”

Drew laid the photo on the table and turned toward the doorway. “It proves,” he said, “that Stockbridge was murdered by a man who was never arrested in New York.”

“That’s a large order!” chuckled the commissioner. “There are a few good citizens and a number of bad ones we haven’t got—yet!”

“I’m satisfied,” said the detective, pulling his hat down over his head. “I’m going to look for a man who is too clever for his own good. He’s stayed out of your clutches. He’s forgotten more about telephones than most men know. He’s as slippery as an eel and as clever as the very devil. In one thing only did he err, so far in this chase.”

“What’s that?” asked the commissioner.

“He didn’t wear gloves on the job. That’s where we may trip him up.”

“They all forget something,” said Fosdick, as Drew hurried out through the door with a bow toward the staring fingerprint man.

The detective hurried down the steps,—passed the sergeant at the entrance, and turned up his coat collar as he plunged from the building and lowered his head beneath the down driving snow. The entire matter was as he had told Delaney. He would have to find who made the prints!

Deep, drifted snow barred his progress as he struck down through a towering cañon and walked eastward. He had no coherent idea save the one that he wanted the grip of the open places in his lungs and the feel of freedom from stifling rooms and skeptical men.

The case had resolved itself into a battle of wits wherein the culprit who had murdered Stockbridge, by unknown means, had all the advantages. He was unknown. He had the largest city in the world to hide himself in. He could strike at any time and in any quarter. Also, the detective realized, with a chilly oath, the murderer might already be fleeing the city for the south or west. It would be a natural thing for him to do.

Drew had one undisputed qualification for a detective. He was a worker. He lacked the Latin sense of deduction, or the cleverness of a great operative who secured his men through quick brain work and shrewdness.

Hard work, and more work and still more work had won for him the little position he held in the city. He did not overrate his own powers. He had failed too often to hold himself too highly. Chance was a big factor in the criminal game. The members of the criminal tribe worked through luck and sheer audacity. Many escaped from the net and moved in the underworld until they made their final mistake which was probably so glaring it couldn’t be overlooked.

Despite the fact that the finger prints were not of record, Drew held to the swirling conviction that the man he was after was of the criminal horde. There was much to lead him to this belief. The cleverness in connecting up the two telephone booths—the warning through the mail to Stockbridge—the manner in which the murder had been covered up in a score of details, all pointed to a criminal mind of the cunningest order. It savored of practice in crime and study of natural conditions. Its bizarre features placed it out from other crimes and raised it to a class of its own.

The snow which impeded the detective’s steps, in some manner cleared his brain. He began to review the series of events. He boxed the case with returning shrewdness. He went over the points like a sailor repeating the compass-chart. He even saw a light.

This light was a star that guided him around a corner and then along the long reach of a white-mantled street where children shrilled and played. Snow-balls flew past his head. Sleighs and muffled taxis churned by. Women in furs and heavy cloaks glanced up at his olive face from which peered sanguine eyes bent upon a known destination.

He paused at the foot of a flight of steps leading to a library. In this building he knew there would be on file certain data concerning three links of the chain which he was trying to forge about the criminal or criminals who had slain Stockbridge.

He entered the storm-door, shook the snow from his coat, and removed his hat with a swinging bow as he drew erect in front of a prim lady at a desk.

“I want all the books you have on modern telephony,” he said with a winning smile. “I’m sure that you have one or two.”

The prim lady who knew a gentleman when she saw one, raised her brows and rapidly thumbed over a filing-card system.

“One or two,” she repeated. “Why, we have over twenty. Now just what branch of Telephony do you want? There are a number of divisions in the subject. We have Smith on Central Office practice. We have Steinward on Induced Currents in Relation to Magnetism. We have Oswerlander on Switchboards and Carbon Transmitters. We have Burke on Circuits and Batteries. We have––”

“Hold on, please,” said Drew, catching his breath. “I better try something easy. One of those Juvenile books with simple diagrams and switchboards or junction-boxes.”

Drew carried the book to an alcove which was deserted. He took off his coat, hung it on the back of a chair, upended his hat and sat down with a tired smile. Soon he was busy in the mystery of electricity in relation to the telephone. He conned over the pages. He browsed along like a novice trying to understand trigonometry. He frowned over such terms as micro-ampere and micro-volt. He grew dizzy following wiring diagrams which were far worse than any clue he had ever attempted.

“A telephone engineer,” he said half aloud. “A man who could trace out this stuff ought to make a mighty fine detective. I never saw such a snarl. Now what does hysteresis and laminations mean? What’s the idea of having an alternating current of low voltage on the same line with a talking current of three volts? I don’t see how they can get two currents on one set of wires. Maybe they don’t.”

He tossed the book to the table in front of him and rose with a frown. This frown changed to a wrinkled furrow of half amusement as he hurried back to the little prim lady.

“Too deep for me,” he said, referring to the book she had given him. “That may be a beginner’s treatise, but I’m in the kindergarten class in electricity. What’s a micro-volt?”

“I’ll look it up, sir,” she said.

“Never mind. I wouldn’t know, after you did. Suppose you get me a book on magpies.”

The librarian fingered her files. “Try Birds of England,” she suggested, coming from behind her desk and gliding like a pale shadow over to a book-case. “Try this. It’s complete. You’ll find magpies and starlings and piemags and any number of plates of six colors in this splendid volume.”

“The one that interested me was black as a crow,” he said, as he turned toward his alcove. “Perhaps there are white magpies as well as white crows. I never saw one, though. My bird’s a deep one.”

The little librarian stared after Drew’s vanishing form with a slight pucker between her eyes. For a man of his solid respectability, the series of actions were strange indeed. She sat down and wondered if he was a moving picture editor trying to connect black magpies and telephones.

Drew appeared in two minutes. He leaned over the desk and startled the lady with a request for anything pertaining to guns and projectiles. These she had in plenty. A great many war books had been purchased during the period which followed America’s declaration.

The detective erected a breastwork with the books she brought. He conned them with understanding until he came to ballistics and trajectory. He stopped there. He rose. His brain was crammed with fact upon fact. He had the formulæ of smokeless powder and the analysis of cupronickle bullets. He had absorbed muzzle velocity and angle of fire. He fairly bubbled over with good humor as he thrust his hands into his overcoat, caught up his hat and started out the door after glancing back and bowing to the librarian who smiled a good-by.

The street was dark save for the glow of the overhead arcs. He thrust out his arm and tested the snow fall. It was not as heavy as when he had entered the library. He went down the steps, turned toward the north and plowed along the sidewalk.

Suddenly the thought came to him to glance at his watch. He had forgotten time and place over the hours in the pursuit of knowledge which might and might not be applied to the case at hand. It was almost six o’clock.

“Lord,” he said in surprise. “I’m going crazy. Two hours in a trance. Now for work. I wonder what the operatives will have to report? They ought to have something. I wonder,” he added, peering under the fine drizzle of snow, “I wonder where the nearest telephone is located? Another block, I guess.”

His brain gathered up the skeins of the case as he hurried along. Fingerprints, plaster-casts, smooth bullets, locked rooms and a raven-black magpie, trooped into their proper formation. He dwelt longest on the telephone information he had gathered in the library. The case seemed bound up in whispering wires and broken connections which might be spliced together with patience and hard work.

The whole matter, from the call of the millionaire, down to the clew discovered in comparing the finger prints at Detective Headquarters, was a city-spread network of telephone connections which had to be traced back to an elusive individual who flitted like a shadow or a whirling dervish across the detective’s vision.

He reached the drug-store, paused outside, glanced up and down the white-robed street, then pressed the door open and stamped inside. He found a nickel. Dropping this in the slot and closing the booth, he asked Central for his office phone.

The connection was made with Harrigan on the other end. “What’s new in the Stockbridge case?” asked Drew in a whisper.

He listened. He grew rigid as the faithful operative summed up the entire series of reports. There were six of them. The last was from Delaney.

“Hang up!” the detective almost shouted in his eagerness. “Hang up, Harrigan, and let me get him.”

Finding a quarter instead of a nickel, Drew dropped it in the large slot and jiggled the receiver’s hook until Central answered.

“Get me Gramercy Hill 9764!” he exclaimed. “Quick! 9764 Gramercy Hill!”

“That’s her number,” he said aloud. “Loris Stockbridge’s number. It must be her number. I haven’t forgotten that, have I?”

The time consumed in getting the connection seemed endless. Drew lifted one damp sole from the floor of the booth and then the other. The receiver’s diaphragm clicked finally. “Hello!” he snapped. “Hello, who’s this?”

He waited a full second. “This Delaney?” he asked. “Who?” he added. “Oh! you’re the maid! Well get me Miss Stockbridge or Mr. Delaney. Yes, Delaney. D-e-l-a-n-e-y!”

“This Delaney? ... No! ... Who?... Nichols? ... Harry Nichols? Hello, Nichols! ... Is Delaney there?”

The big operative’s voice sounded with a rasp on the wire. “What’s the news?” asked Drew. “What’s that you’ve been telling Harrigan? Something about a coffin? A coffin? What—a casket? A hardwood casket. I’ll be right up! I’m coming!”

The detective’s olive face was the color of burnt pottery as he flipped the receiver on the hook, thrust his knee against the door and charged out of the booth and into the drug-store. He wheeled, turned his coat collar up, drew down his hat and dashed outside as an astonished clerk leaned over the prescription counter and stared after him.

The message that Delaney had sent over the snow-crusted wires, and along the underground conduits, was laden with menace. It drove Drew westward through the drifts like a man who had a whip held over him. He crossed two avenues before he sighted a taxi. He charged after this, sprang to the running board, and shouted into the driver’s muffled ear.

“Drive like sin—full speed and more—up Fifth Avenue! I’ll tell you when to stop! The devils are not going to kill that little lady if I can help it,” he added, as he opened the door and climbed inside the taxi.

Night was falling upon the greatest city in the world. After night would come the myriads of electric lights in the huge Broadway signs—the surface cars creeping through the snow-fall like glow worms—the muffled pedestrians and the chain-tired taxis, with their well-groomed patrons, hastening to ballrooms, cabarets and theaters more luxurious than any dreamed of by Lucullus.

Into the tide of this forming stream of wealth, Drew’s taxi turned and ground northward through the drifts. The detective had given no definite address. He wanted the air of the Avenue for at least two blocks, before he reached the Stockbridge mansion. He signaled as a familiar corner came in view. He turned his overcoat collar up to his chin and stepped out, as the driver brought the taxi to a slow stop at the curb.

“Stay around the corner!” he ordered. “Stay, till I send word. Here’s a dollar for supper. Get that and wait!”

The driver touched his cap and reached for the bill. Drew swung northward, threw back his head, and plowed along the snow-laden sidewalk. Delaney’s statement over the telephone had stirred every drop of red blood in his body. Loris was in danger! This nerved him on. He clenched his gloved fists as he reached the first side street. He crossed the wheel-churned snow, with his lips gripped in a hard white line. His eyes raised in heavy-lidded scrutiny of the towering turrets and spires of the mansion. Lights shone from its windows as if in defiance to the powers of darkness which encompassed the dwelling.

A snow-crusted form stepped out from a basement shelter. Drew raised his arm as a barrier when a figure of a man lurched in his direction.

“Hello, O’Toole!” he blurted, recognizing the operative. “What are you doing here?”

O’Toole jerked a mittened finger in the direction of the mansion. “Our lad’s in there,” he said, thrashing his arms and flipping his finger for a second time. “Harry Nichols!” he explained.

“S—o! The whole case seems to be gathering again. Every clue leads this way now. What did you learn to-day?”

O’Toole yawned. “I got on the job early,” he said with frosty breath. “I waited. The lad came down. He got in a taxi and I’m right after him. First he went to the Quartermaster’s Offices at the Battery. Then he went to Governor’s Island. From there I trailed him to the Red Cross Headquarters. He ’phoned Gramercy Hill 9764, at least three times.”

“To the girl in the case?”

“Yep, Chief! He’s gone on her. He tended to some funeral matters connected with Stockbridge, bought some flowers—three dozen lilies of the valley—then came on up here. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

“Seen anybody about?”

“Delaney and some Central Office men—that’s all! Shall I stay here?”

“Not here! Jump back in the alley and watch the junction-box. I think Delaney has been there. You’ll find the snow melted in spots. Plant somewhere, and keep your eyes open. Grab anybody you see tampering with the wires to the house. I’m looking for trouble to-night. They threatened Loris with a letter this afternoon.”

Drew did not stop to explain. He hurried on ahead of O’Toole, turned at the iron-grilled gate, passed through and pressed the button.

A Central Office man with a gold-badge showing, jerked the door open and glanced out. He blinked sagely as he recognized the detective.

“All right!” said Drew. “Let me in!”

The door swung wider. Drew lunged through and turned. “What’s new?” he asked, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “Are those servants still under arrest?”

“Some of them, Inspector,” grunted the Central Office man. “I can’t talk much. Fosdick gave me hell for talking to a newspaper man. He left word, though, that you could come in.”

“Thanks!” Drew said dryly. “Thanks! That’s kind of him. You are holding down this door?”

“Sure, Inspector! The butler and the second-man are down at Headquarters. I don’t like the job, but orders is orders.”

Drew loosened his overcoat, removed his kid-gloves, stamped his snow-covered shoes on the rug, and hurried past the library, where stood a burly Central Office man on guard. He mounted the steps with the running motion of a boy of fifteen. He glanced upward to where velvet-soft light glowed at the entrance to Loris Stockbridge’s suite of rooms. Delaney stood framed in the opening. His huge bulk blotted out the inner rooms. His face, seen in the high shadows, was long and grim.

“She’s in there,” said the operative, raising his chin over his lifted arm. “Miss Stockbridge is in there. She’s with her maid—one Fosdick tried to pinch—and Harry Nichols. She’s got a notice by special delivery, that the coffin she ordered from the Hardwood Casket Company, of Jersey City, will be delivered to-morrow. She never ordered any coffin, Chief. Ain’t that dirt—to a girl like that? What d’ye think of it?”

Drew’s answer to Delaney’s question was a grinding of teeth and a sharp oath of defiance. He clutched the operative’s arm in a nipping grip. He led him into the tiny reception-hall of the suite.

The detective paused on the threshold of a larger room. He dropped his hand from Delaney’s arm. He stabbed sharp glances here and there about the interior. He widened his eyes as they came to rest upon a further doorway, which was hung with soft tapestries gathered to the side-walls by cords of silk. Beyond this doorway, like the vista of some rare painting, shone an inner light of a woman’s shrine.

Silver and pearl and old rose blended into a bower such as is found in palaces. Tiny medallions and plaques and miniatures—narrow framed studies in oil—fans, vases, statuettes of ivory and rare china, a hundred choice and dainty objects of haute-art were in that splendid room.

Drew advanced over a rug so soft and deep he felt like a peri entering Paradise. He brushed aside the tapestries and strode swiftly forward. His hat came off as Loris advanced to meet him from a large chamber, wherein the color scheme had been worked out in black and white with a suggestion of green-in-gold.

He forgot the material things of that apartment as he bowed gallantly. He thrust his hand forward and clasped strong fingers over her own. The grief of her father’s death had widened her eyes and set them in circles of dark brows and tear-stained features. Her voice clutched in her throat as she tried to speak. Her hand was drawn from his slowly. It raised to her broad forehead beneath her blue-black hair, with a passing motion that dispelled some of the doubt within her. She smiled wanly. Her round, young breast rose and fell with the rustle of perfumed laces. She swished her lavender gown behind her with a turn of a white, supple wrist upon which was a tiny, diamond-studded watch of superior make.

“Courage!” said Drew. “Have courage! They won’t get you!”

“They—they,” she breathed. “They have threatened me like they threatened poor father. They sent a letter. Oh, I wish I were a man!”

Drew flushed beneath his olive cheeks. He reached upward and turned down his overcoat collar. He laid his hat on a chair, braced his shoulders, and stared around the room. His eyes wandered from the walls to the inner opening. “Who’s in there?” he asked.

“Harry—Harry Nichols. I telephoned for him. I was afraid. I admit I’m afraid, Mr. Drew. You know what they did to father?”

“Yes, I know. It was an error on my part. We did not take the proper precautions. But this time—we will!”

“I hope you do. I don’t feel like myself, after last night. It came so suddenly. I heard you people talking in the lower hallway. I went to the bannisters and saw all the servants at the library door. And then—and then, I went down without a particle of warning. It was a shock, Mr. Drew.”

“One I could have spared you,” admitted the detective. “It was preventable,” he added, turning toward Delaney.

The operative stepped forward. He struck a chair with his foot and tumbled it over. Picking it up and setting it down on its legs, he flushed guiltily.

“Be careful!” snapped Drew. “Get me that letter this young lady received from Jersey. Get it! We’ll look it over right now!”

Delaney glanced at Loris. “She’s got it,” he said. “I gave it back to her.”

Loris shuddered and pressed her hands to her breast. “I tore it up,” she whispered. “I was so excited and angry I tore it up. It’s in the waste-basket.”

“Fetch the basket!” said Drew to Delaney. “Go get it. We’ll make this room our headquarters,” he added, swinging about on one heel. “We’ll stay right here and watch things, Miss Loris.”

The girl nodded prettily. Her courage came back with flushed cheeks. She glanced up at Drew’s strong jaw and face. The detective squared his shoulder with a final shrug. “We’ll stay here!” he said masterly. “Though all the demons in hell are closing in on you, we’ll stick. We’ll get them this time! I’ve almost got my man. If he moves his pawns to-night, we’ll round up the whole bunch and send them to the chair!”

“Are there more than one?”

“Yes! One is directing—another or others are doing his will. Your father was slain in some mysterious manner which we have not, as yet, determined. The man, or men, who caused him to meet with death, left their marks behind them—fingerprints—footprints, voices over wires, and other evidences of material deviltry. They blundered a score of times! They should have killed that magpie. They did not wear gloves when they should have worn gloves. They forgot, or overlooked, that telephone calls can be traced. We’ve traced them. We’ve almost succeeded. The trouble is, that time is short. What was in that letter?”

Loris turned toward the inner room. Delaney, followed by Harry Nichols in full uniform, appeared. The operative held out a handful of scrapped paper.

“Ain’t much to learn here, Chief. It’s pretty well torn up. I remember what it said, though.”

“Repeat it!”

“It was from the Hardwood Casket Company of Jersey City. It was dated this morning. It said that the coffin Miss Stockbridge ordered for the lady who was about to die in her family, would be delivered to-morrow afternoon by express at her town house, as ordered.”

“The curs!” exclaimed Drew.

“Sure they are, Chief. The letter was signed by the manager. I think it was the manager. I couldn’t read his writing!”

“Let me see the scraps.”

Delaney sorted them into a small stack and passed them to Drew. The detective lifted each fragment, held it to the light, and placed it into his right overcoat-pocket. “I get it,” he said. “It looks genuine. Did you telephone them?”

“Nope! I was a-waiting for you to come up here. There’s a phone here. It’s over there!”

Drew nodded. “I saw it,” he said thoughtfully. “We better be careful how we use the phones of this house. They tapped the wires before, and they can do it again. We’re fighting very high-class devils.”

“It doesn’t seem real!” blurted Harry Nichols. “I thought that death only stalked in No Man’s Land. It’s right here, gentlemen!”

Drew frowned and shook his head. He glanced at Miss Stockbridge. He rubbed his hands softly. “No more danger,” he warned in a confident voice. “We’ve got twenty Central Office men in the house or about the place. No bank was ever better protected. There will be no real trouble to-night.”

“That’s what you said the other time, to father,” Loris suggested without thought. “You did—you remember? You were in the library and he felt so confident nothing would happen. Something did happen!”

“I admit it!” Drew said with candor, “I admit everything, Miss Loris. I’m partly to blame. The trouble was, I underestimated my adversary. A man should never do that. This time, though,” he added with glazed eyes that roamed the walls. “This time is going to be different. Now, how about all your rooms? We must be sure that there is no slip. We must be sure––”

“Sure, we must be sure!” interrupted Delaney. “I’ve looked everywhere, Chief. Leave that to me!”

Drew glanced at Loris, who had stepped toward Harry Nichols. He studied the picture the two made, with their heads close together. The captain held himself defiantly, but with that certain polish which goes with a fondness for the things of life worth having. He had chosen a rather pretty girl, and upon her he had lavished his attentions. He had defied Stockbridge! This was motive enough for a crime. He was not the criminal, decided Drew. There was that to the captain’s resolute, though thick lips, and his wide eyes, which assured the detective he would not stoop to low things to gain his ends. He had enlisted voluntarily. He had worked hard at Plattsburg. He had served, and was upon the eve of going to Pershing. No man with such a record would slay a girl’s father to gain the girl.

The detective erased Harry Nichols from his mind. “You two,” he said commandingly, “had better go into the library! I mean Miss Stockbridge’s writing-room. Stay there, please, till Mr. Delaney and I notify you. Who else, beside we four, are in this part of the house?”

“Only the maid,” said Loris.

“Go in, please, and wait. I’m going to lock everything up. We’re going to take every precaution this time. Frankly, I don’t see how any agency can do more than we have already. Were we dealing with ordinary crooks or blackmailers, I would have you take a taxi and move to some Fifth Avenue hotel. But it seems an unnecessary risk. This is the safest place in the world, despite the letter from the casket company and the former warning. What man can enter this place to-night—without our permission?”

“I’d like to see one!” blurted Delaney.

Harry Nichols offered his arm to Loris. They passed from the view of the two detectives with the locked, gliding stride of two dancers who moved to slow time. Drew heard the portières which led to the writing-room rustle downward and settle into place. He passed his hand over his forehead and breathed deeply.

“We’ll get busy,” he whispered tersely. “We’ll search these rooms again. Let’s start with a definite foundation!”

Delaney grunted at the uselessness of this as he reached and took the detective’s overcoat which was peeled off and extended to him.

“Hang it on a chair,” said Drew sharply. “Over there with my hat. Now,” he snapped, “what about the windows of this room, the little reception hall and the bedroom over there? That’s a bedroom, isn’t it?”

“Sure, Chief! I frisked it good. The Central Office men were up here early in the morning. They went through everything. Fosdick, they say, was like a bull. He said the thing couldn’t be done.”

“It was done!”

“Did you get any clue, Chief, as to how it was done?”

“It’s as much a mystery as ever. But we’re trimming the tree called Truth with a broad ax. I’m going around this case to get the man or men who did it. Then we’ll find out how it was done!”

“Oh!” Delaney’s expression was thought-laden. “Just thought of it, Chief. I got them plaster-of-paris casts. I got ’em down stairs. It was some job, believe me. I took everything about that junction-box, after I’d thawed the snow with hot blankets which a good-looking cook brought to me.”

“Go down and get them!”

Delaney hurried out through the tapestries of the room. Drew started his search of the apartment by a study of the windows and the catches. He opened one and glanced outside. Snow had drifted to the depth of three inches on the sill. This snow was unmarked. He examined all of the sills extending from the three rooms. He closed and locked the windows. He backed off into the center of the reception room and studied the situation from every angle. The furniture was fragile and in sets of such splendid periods his eyes closed over them. The rugs and tapestries—curtains and portières—sheathings of yellow hand-painted silk from Nippon—rare ceramics and cloisonnés—a huge peach-blow vase of the Ming dynasty and a hundred little jade and jasper knick-knacks were the outward evidence of wealth.

He opened the plate-glass cases and peered inside. He crawled under a couch and backed out dusting his hands. He tapped with slow knuckles a long cheval-glass by the side of which was a tiny gold-bracket and a silver-plated telephone. He went the rounds of the walls, lifting pictures, portraits and little military oils by French painters of the Franco-Prussian period. He found nothing to excite his suspicion!

Entering a simple bedroom, with its tiled flooring and its single white bed, he spared this as he passed to the bath beyond, which had no outlet save a ventilating shaft securely barred by a bronze grating of close, fantastic-scrolled mesh.

Delaney’s heavy steps were heard in the reception hall as Drew finished. Striding out into the larger room he frowned as the operative deposited a blanket upon a Persian rug and began to untie its corners.

“I got ’em here, Chief,” explained the assistant with upturned face. “There’s five or six prints—all alike.”

“What? Repeat that!” Drew dropped to one knee.

“Sure, Chief. There’s only been one guy at that junction-box before the freezing started. He made plenty of tracks. He came and went from the fence to the box. It’s a small foot. There was plenty of prints made after the snow piled on top of these little prints.”

“The operatives?”

“Sure, and the Central Office bunch! But these prints I got here are the only ones under the snow. They stuck up when I melted away the surface.”

Delaney offered a plaster-cast of the top of a footprint. It was roughly done. It had been made, like the others in the blanket, by pouring cold plaster within a retaining bulge of soap. The plaster had hardened and brought out each detail. Drew traced his finger over the toe. “Right foot,” he said. “Now let’s see the others!”

“Here’s a left foot, Delaney,” added the detective slowly. “Only one left and four right. That might happen. You didn’t take them all. Well, bundle them up and plant them somewhere. Put them under that couch, out of sight. I’ve got an idea!”

“What is it, Chief?” asked the operative as he drew on the knots until he had gathered the corners together. “What’s new? I can’t see anything in sight, at-tall, at-tall. One man—that’s all I see.”

“And that’s all I see—the trouble-hunter—Delaney!”

“But what about the tall guy who looked like a German? The fellow the trouble-man saw getting over the fence and beating it for Fifth Avenue?”

“He didn’t leave any tracks!”

“Ah, Chief, get out! That ain’t human!”

Drew paced the floor with his hands clasped behind him. He wheeled with sudden energy. “Go, you!” he exclaimed with a pointing finger. “Hurry out of this house and telephone Gramercy Hill Exchange. Tell the superintendent to send over that trouble-man. I want to compare these prints with his shoes. He couldn’t have been lying. There’s no object in that! But, Delaney, how could a man tap in on that junction-box and never leave prints in the snow? That’s my question!”

“How could one shoot a man in a sealed room, Chief? There ain’t much difference!”

Drew snatched out his watch. “Hurry,” he said. “Get over to Gramercy Hill Exchange—it’s only three blocks from here. Ask Jack Nefe, or whoever is in charge, for the trouble-man who fixed the phone last night. He’ll be able to tell us what part of the fence the tall fellow, who looked like a German, got over. Perhaps he wasn’t at the junction-box at all!”

“Who, Chief?”

“The tall fellow! Perhaps he was skulking about the windows at the back.”

“Perhaps he was a ghost,” said Delaney to himself as he lunged through the tapestries toward the staircase which led down from the third floor of the mansion.

Drew crossed the room and rapped softly on a panel by the portières which covered the opening to the reading-room and library. He heard a muffled word of warning. Loris Stockbridge glided across the rugs and peered out. Her face was set and tear-stained. She had been sobbing upon an olive-drab shoulder.

“Pardon,” said Drew with a slight sigh. “I beg pardon, Miss Stockbridge. I want to look over the sitting-room and examine the windows. Where is the maid?”

Loris touched her eyes with a handkerchief drawn from her breast. She replaced this and nodded over her shoulder. She parted the portières with her unjeweled right hand. “The maid,” she said softly, “is in her room. That’s back of this reading-room. Shall I call her?”

“You and Mr. Nichols come in here, please,” said Drew. “I’ll knock on the maid’s door and look her over. We can’t be too careful—remember that. It’s getting late,” he added with candor.

Drew allowed Harry Nichols and Loris to pass him as he held the portières for them with a thoughtful bow. He crossed the reading-room, examined the books and cases, glanced under a low divan, and saw to it that each window was latched before he knocked lightly upon a further door which was hidden by curtains.

A maid appeared, in smart white apron and pursed lips of inquiry. Drew regarded her not unkindly. He ran his eyes up and down her trim figure from the black bow in her brown hair to the wide ribbons which laced her trim French shoes.

“How long have you been with Miss Stockbridge?” he asked.

“Merci, Monsieur!” she courtesied. “It has been for zee longest time. Cinq—sept, années, monsieur,” she counted mentally.

“Good!” said Drew closing the door lightly. “Good little girl. We won’t bother you the rest of the night,” he added as he turned a good key in a perfectly good lock and dropped the curtains.

“Now!” he said with a final glance about the reading-room, with its morocco-bound tomes and glowing lights. “Now, let the worst come! Let that come what may!”

He strode through to the reception room, glanced slit-lidded at Loris and Nichols, who had seated themselves in the deeper recess of a splendid alcove, and hurried to the hall where Delaney was hastily removing his coat, and showing other evidences of some answer to his quest at the telephone exchange.

“Well?” asked Drew as the bulk of the big operative loomed through the tapestries. “Well, what did you find out over there?”

“Enough, Chief!” Delaney’s voice was hard. He glanced at Loris and Nichols. His right eye closed in a warning wink of caution.

“Come into this other room,” said Drew. “Come right in, Delaney. This way!” Drew lifted the portières, then dropped them after the operative had stumbled forward.

“What did you find?” he asked into Delaney’s ear. “Out with it!”

The operative glanced about the reading-room. He blinked at the glowing electrics. He recovered his voice as he drew in a deep breath which bulged his chest to barrel proportions.

“I went,” he said huskily. “I went to Gramercy Hill Exchange. Found the superintendent.... Fellow, you told me to find, Chief ... I draws him to one side.... I asked about this trouble-hunter.... He ups like I’d hit him.... He says fellow quit to-day.... Says fellow.... Says he was no good.... Says he was tapping joints instead of soldering them. Says he only hired him on account of the shortage of electricians and helpers ... because of the last Army draft.”

“Did you get his address?”

“I got it, Chief.... It is over on Fifty-third Street near the River.... I didn’t go.... I wanted to see you first.... There’s more.”

“Out with it!”

“The superintendent says he never sent that trouble-hunter over here last night.... There’s a record of sending another man named Frisby.”

“Did you see—Frisby?”

“I did, Chief.”

“What did he say?” Drew’s fingers had clutched the operative’s arm. “What did he say?” he repeated grimly.

“Said, that Albert—that’s the trouble-hunter—had stopped him on the way over here and took his place.... Said, he was satisfied.... Albert could have all the jobs on a night like last night. That’s just what Frisby said, Chief!”

Drew loosened his fingers from Delaney’s arm and turned slowly. The portières swayed slightly. They shook anew. They parted at the center and revealed Loris Stockbridge. Her eyes burned the soft gloom with glazed interrogation. She raised her white hand and pressed back her hair from her forehead. She stepped forward with her knees striking against the stiff satin of her skirt. She swung from Delaney toward Drew.

“What were you saying?” she asked imperiously. “What did you say about a trouble-man? What was it, please?”

“I’m lookin’ for one, Miss!” declared Delaney. “I was over at the telephone company’s exchange lookin’ for the lad that was here last night and fixed the junction-box in the yard back of the house. Mr. Drew wants him.”

Loris turned toward the detective. “You want him?” she asked softly. “What do you want him for? Please tell me. I don’t like him, at all.”

It was Drew’s turn to draw in his breath. He eyed the girl. He tried to fathom the reason for her simple question and her objection. “Miss Loris,” he said, shrugging his square shoulders. “Why, it’s a slight matter. The man has disappeared. We can’t find him. He’s flown—perhaps.”

“Is he a little chap with a satchel and a testing set?” she asked. “A nice-mannered, soft-voiced little man who was so obliging, and yet so—oh! I don’t know what I have against him. He’s so sly—don’t you think so, Mr. Dr—e—w?”

“When did you ever see him?” asked Drew, feeling the blood rising to his cheeks at a thought which surged through his brain.

“Meet him? Why! he was here early this afternoon. He was all over the house!”