The detective wasted no time searching the trouble-hunter’s pockets. His skilled fingers drew forth two envelopes, a note book and a small roll of money, the least of which was ten-dollar bills and the greatest, on the inside, spread out to three staring noughts and a one in front of these.

“One thousand and sixty dollars!” said Drew dryly, handing the roll to Delaney. “This fellow’s well heeled. Perhaps for a get-a-way. Take that. Now here––”

Drew tapped the envelopes with his fingers, spread them open and removed their sheets of closely-written paper.

“First letter,” he announced with raising brows, “is from Standard Electrical Co., of Chicago, recommending Albert Jones as a capable electrician. I don’t doubt it. He’s capable of most anything.”

Delaney took the letter and waited with his eyes fastened upon the silent figure who had not revealed his identity from the time of the arrest.

“Second letter,” continued Drew, “is addressed to Albert Jones, General Delivery, New York Post Office. It is from Ossining. It is signed Mortimer Morphy. How careless,” said the detective, rising in his excitement. “How very careless! It goes on to say that everything is all right. That the appeal is pending with the governor. That uncle Monty was expected to die and that aunt Lou was very low.”

Drew paused and glanced toward Loris and Nichols. “You know what that means?” he asked. “Uncle Monty was Mr. Montgomery Stockbridge and aunt Lou would figure out for you, Miss Stockbridge. Keep this, Delaney. We’re going to convict this man right here—whether he talks or not. This letter was written to him two months ago. It shows premeditation.”

“He looks ill,” said Loris. “His face is so white.”

“Dope!” snapped Drew, pressing down the prisoner’s right eyelid and glancing at the pupil. “A narcotic of some kind shows in the small iris. It’s like a pin head. Yen she, eh, Delaney?”

“Guess it is, Chief. Frisk his cap and belt. They carry it there, sometimes.”

Drew started at the prisoner’s hair and went over his entire body with careful fingers. A bulge, at the waist, resolved itself into a chamois money-belt which contained five cartridges, a small handful of electric fuses and a spool of fine wire.

Drew eyed this last with furrowed brow. He pocketed it finally and studied the cartridges.

“Twenty-two, cupronickle, center-fire,” he announced with a hard smile. “That forges another chain. We’re getting there. He was loaded for something, Delaney.”

“Sure and he was. Look at those handcuffs, Chief. I made them tight as I could.”

Drew handed up the cartridges and fuses and rattled the cuffs. The prisoner protested by turning partly over. His eyelids fluttered and opened full upon Loris. She shrank back between the curtains. Her hands went up to her face in voiceless fear. “Please keep away,” said Drew. “This man is always dangerous. I want to trim his claws before I take any chances with him. Delaney,” he added, “get my overcoat and bring me those plaster-casts. This case grows interesting. I wonder who the fellow is? ‘Albert Jones’ doesn’t convey much. He is a friend and tool of Morphy. Poor Morphy! I wonder what he’ll say when the governor gets this evidence? He’s buried now for twenty long years of penal service. He picked a good tool, though. A smart man!”

The prisoner did not brighten to any extent under the professional flattery. His eyes closed. The cuffed wrists dropped down upon his chest. He breathed slowly as Drew took the overcoat Delaney brought, and found the photos of the finger prints which Fosdick and the expert at headquarters had both declared were not on record.

“A little ink,” Drew said to the operative. “We’ll smear this fellow’s thumb and see if his print answers to the print I found in the booth at Grand Central. I’ll venture that it does.”

Nichols extended a fountain pen which the detective opened, sponged on the corner of a handkerchief, and returned with a chuckle of satisfaction.

“Ah,” he said, gripping the prisoner’s hand and smearing a thumb with a rolling motion across the back of the print. “Ah, Delaney, see here. The same whorls and loops. The same tiny V-shaped scar. One, two, three—center right. This is the man. We have him deeper in toward the place with the little, green door. He knows what I mean!”

The prisoner’s lips closed to a thin, hard line. A tiny spot of hectic fire burned in the center of each cheek as Drew completed the searching and rose.

“Footprints, now!” he said with a snappy order. “Compare those plaster casts you took at the junction-box back of this house. Are they the same? There’s a series of four screw holes in his rubber-heels, Delaney. Do they compare with the casts. Measure them!”

“Sure and they do,” said the big operative, rising and pointing to the small projections. “This lad, Chief, was the only one around that junction-box till after the snow froze and drifted over. That’s my idea, Chief. It caught him, didn’t it, Chief?”

“Every little helps to forge the chain,” Drew said. “He’s in bad now. His only chance is to tell us what he knows about Morphy? What was said over the telephone wire? What did Frick say?”

“It was this way, Chief,” Delaney said. “I’m waiting talking with the drug-clerk when there’s a ring on the slot-booth ’phone. It’s Jack Nefe at Gramercy Hill. He says to me that Frick had just ’phoned and said that Morphy had come out of the guard room, looked around, then, after chinning with a keeper at the front gate, he had started going over a telephone book for a number. Nefe said for me to hold the wire. Then I gets a number, Chief. It’s Gramercy Hill 11,678. Nefe said that was a booth in the new Broadway Subway at Forty-first Street. I piles into a cab and arrives there just as this fellow had finished boring a hole between the two booths—11,678 and 11,679. I waits behind a slot-machine. Some one rang up when he coupled the wires, listens, then asks Gramercy Hill central for this ’phone here in Miss Stockbridge’s room. You see the game, Chief?”

“Go on!” said Drew. “Be very clear!”

“This fellow was connecting Morphy at state prison with this house through the two slot booths. I sneaked up and waited for him to finish. He’s busy with a pair of pliers. I falls on him like a ton of bricks. Then after I get the cuffs on, I listens in. It’s Morphy roaring there, with that big bull voice of his. He’s mad ’cause he gets no answer. He shouts over and over, Chief—’Bert! Bert! Bert! Is it planted in her room? Her room. Is it there?’” Delaney paused and stared about the sitting room.

“What does he mean, Chief?” he asked huskily. “What is that ’it’?”

“Go on!” said Drew tersely.

“I got Morphy off the wire, Chief. I got Frick and then Frick got the warden. He’s a good fellow. He listened to me, then he calls some guards and they drag Morphy through the prison and down to the coolers. I guess they’re down in the ground, somewhere. Anyway, Chief, he’s gone for good—unless they send him to the chair for his part in the murder of Stockbridge.”

“He’ll go! What I want to know now, Delaney, is this fellow’s right name. Morphy said ’Bert,’ eh?”

“Sure he did, Chief. ‘Bert! Bert! Bert!’ That’s close to Albert. Albert Jones, like’s in the letter.”

“No! That would be a throw-off. He’s some other kind of a Bert. Let me see his cap.”

Delaney picked the prisoner’s cap from the rug and passed it over to Drew. The detective examined it, ripped the silk, and looked under the lining. He straightened and handed it to Harry Nichols.

“Can you make that name out?” he asked. “Your eyes are younger than mine. Perhaps Miss Stockbridge can read it. It’s Spanish, I think. ‘Gusta’ or ‘Gasta.’ The rest is obliterated with grease.”

“Antofagasta!” declared Loris suddenly. “It’s Antofagasta, Chile.”

“Fetch the lineman’s kit, the Central Office man brought,” said Drew to the operative. “Put it right here by this fellow’s side. I—we are getting close to the truth in this case.”

Delaney hurried back with the satchel. It was the same one that Drew had seen in the library on the evening Stockbridge was murdered. It had excited no suspicion then.

“A magneto,” said the detective. “First comes a ringing magneto which has seen much service. Put that over there, Delaney. Spread a paper or something. Ah,” Drew added, “here’s a set of small dry batteries arranged in series. Three or four of them. I don’t know just what they’re for, but Bert does.”

The prisoner’s pale eyes blinked and were closed again as the lids compressed in wrinkled determination. He moved slightly when Drew pressed a knee against his chest. He coughed with dry catching deep down in his throat. The detective felt of his pulse. It was faint but steady—like a tired sleeper’s.

“He’s coming out of it,” Drew said. “He’ll talk after awhile. Let’s see, what is this?”

Delaney leaned over the satchel. “Another link,” said Drew, drawing out a telephone receiver without wires attached to it. “And here,” he added, “is the testing set with the sharp clamps. That’s for listening in or talking with other people’s connections. I don’t doubt that this fellow knows his business. Here’s a micro-volt meter that registers fractions of volts. Here’s an ammeter of the pocket size. I’ve seen this kind on automobiles for testing dry-cells. Now, what is this?”

“Looks like a full set of jimmies!” blurted Delaney. “That’s a sectional jimmy!”

“He’s got everything,” said the detective, turning and glancing at Loris. “Here, Miss Stockbridge,” he said, holding up an empty cartridge shell. “Here is the most important link in the chain against him. It’s a twenty-two shell which has been fired. See—wait—what’s this, Delaney? The cap on the end hasn’t been struck. The cartridge was discharged—the cap is intact. How could that be?”

Loris and Harry Nichols leaned over the detective. He turned the tiny shell around in his fingers. He sniffed it. He held it out so they could see the end. “Discharged,” he exclaimed, “without touching the detonating cap on the end! That’s odd! Very suggestive!”

“Let me see it,” said Nichols. “I’ll tell. We have exams on these things. This seems to have been fired,” he continued with thought. “It’s been fired without concussion. I’d say it was heat that did it. A match touched to the base here would fire the cap, which would, in turn, set off the powder. There’s a different color to the brass at the cap end. It looks to me like a shell which has been clamped down by three—no, four screws. There’s marks on the rim. See them, Loris—Miss Stockbridge? Right there. Right at my nail.”

“That’s about right, Harry!” declared Drew, reaching for the cartridge. “It was clamped down with small screws. It was ignited or set off by heat. It forms part of a home-made pistol which conforms, to a hair, with Fosdick’s statement that the bullet never went through a barrel that was rifled.”

“That’s your own statement!” blurted Delaney. “Fosdick never had brains enough to figure a thing out like that. All he knows is pinch everybody two or three times. I’ve seen him do it.”

Drew eyed the prisoner. “So you see,” he said softly, cuttingly, “crime does not pay. The net has closed over your head. You erred a score of times. You couldn’t afford to make one little mistake. I could—I did! I’ve made a hundred in this case already! It’s the hound and the hare. The hound loses the scent and brays on blunderingly till he picks it up again. You lost me time and again. You fooled me in that lineman’s guise when you came into the library. Your make-up was perfect. You said just the right things.”

The prisoner’s lips curled in a thin cruel line. He rattled the cuffs defiantly. His shoulders lifted then fell back upon the rug.

“Bert!” snapped Drew. “Bert!” he repeated with awakening thought. “Delaney,” he said, turning and glancing up at the operative’s broad, flushed face. “I got this fellow located. What was the name of the man we tried to find in the Morphy failure? The one we had a bench-warrant for? He was indicted. The indictment was sealed. You know! It’s a name you didn’t like. The fellow who escaped to Rio or South America? Who afterwards went to Antofagasta. Ah, Cuthbert!”

“That’s it, Chief! Cutbert! Cutbert Morphy—the old devil’s brother. This is him!”

Drew rubbed his hands vigorously. “It is!” he exclaimed, with his eyes swinging over the prisoner’s drawn features. “Cuthbert Morphy—a brother’s tool and confederate. We’re getting on!”

The detective rose and faced Loris and Nichols. “Captain,” he said, “a firing squad at sunrise would be the Army’s answer to this man’s deviltry. Consider what he has done. He’s worked back to New York after a year as a fugitive. He connected in some manner with Morphy at Sing Sing. Perhaps he went there as a visitor under the pretext of business connected with Morphy’s affairs. This scheme was hatched there in the prison. It was financed by Morphy. It succeeded in so far as Mr. Stockbridge was concerned. First the telephone call to the cemetery superintendent. Then followed his visit to this house for the purpose of fixing some fiendish device. Or––”

“He might have fixed the windows, Chief,” suggested Delaney. “He might have opened a catch and climbed in afterwards.”

“He wasn’t near the windows,” said Drew. “He had something else in the back of his crafty, twisted brain. He came and went out, with Mr. Stockbridge and I watching him. He called up, then, and threatened the death. He probably looped the library ’phone up with Sing Sing at or about midnight. We have a record of both calls.”

“Why,” asked Loris, as Drew paused in thought. “Why did he have Morphy connected with father? I can’t see, Mr. Drew, that part of it. The rest, you have told is, is very clear.”

“Nor I yet,” admitted the detective. “But that is a detail. It is probably the criminal’s ego, which is in every one of them, to notify their prey that the hour has come. Morphy was an artist in crime. He was a master mind in finance and chicanery. What better revenge could he think of than to notify Mr. Stockbridge that death was about to strike? It savors of Machiavelli and Borgia. Whom the gods destroy they first make mad. He tried it on you.”

“Gods!” blurted Delaney with ire. “Devils, you mean, Chief!”

“Yes, or worse!” said Drew, glancing sternly at the prisoner. “This fellow,” he added, “is the agent for the destroyer. Now how was it done?”

Delaney glanced about the walls of the room in apprehension. “I’ll take another look around,” he suggested heavily. “Maybe with them new ideas we can locate something that might be planted for the killing.”

Drew glanced sharply at the prisoner’s face. A faint sneer was on the thin lips. The wrists twisted and turned in the handcuffs. The steel chain rattled metallically. Loris backed step after step toward the shielding curtain and Harry Nichols. “Oh!” she said suddenly, as she dropped her head against his breast. “Oh, Harry! there can’t be anything like that.”

“Certainly not!” Drew hastened to ejaculate. “That’s nonsense. If there was anything planted in either of these three rooms, there’s no one to get in and operate it. I’ve searched! Mr. Delaney has searched. Do you want us to search again?” Drew’s lips were drawn with doubt as he stared anxiously from Loris to Nichols. “I’ll do it, captain, if you say so. I think we’ve done enough work, however. The thing is to get this fellow to talk. I don’t want to give him over to Fosdick and the third degree till we see if he is going to treat us right. He can turn state’s evidence on Morphy, who blundered. Then he’ll get off lightly. Morphy is the master mind.”

“He only smiles,” said Nichols, tapping his breast suggestively. “I’ve a gun here and I’ve a mind to use it. Do you think I want Miss Stockbridge murdered like her father was murdered? I’ll shoot that cur! He’s a whispering snake! A Hun!”

“Don’t!” sobbed Loris, as Nichols thrust his hand in his coat and drew out a flat automatic of .44 caliber. “Don’t, Harry! Perhaps this man is innocent.”

“Innocent!” declared Nichols. “Why, Loris—why, Miss Stockbridge, you don’t think that, after all the things Mr. Drew has discovered. I’ll wager my commission he’s guilty as Hell, and I mean it, Loris.”

“He’s that!” Delaney declared. “He and his brother the devil are one in sin. They’re lost spirits.”

“Now everybody,” said Drew, gathering in the group with his eyes, which were strangely bright. “Everybody keep very quiet for a minute. Let me think.”

“Sure and I will, Chief. I’m thinking I want to think, myself.”

Drew frowned at Delaney. He dropped his eyes and studied the prisoner’s hands. They were strangely white and remarkably small for a man who had labored at telephone-repairing. The detective’s glance rested on the ink-stained thumb. His mind swung with this thought to the footprints. Following the train he arrived at the first conclusion that an expert in telephony could devise most any kind of a practical method for opening a window or a ventilator. He dismissed this theory with a glance about the room. The ventilator was well-hidden and inaccessible to any one without a step-ladder. Considerable time devoted in climbing upon a chair and a case of jade ornaments might reach it, but the trouble-man had not been alone in the room when he inspected the telephone.

Drew went over the salient details of the Stockbridge tragedy. One fact stood out. The windows had been well locked. The sashes were covered with snow. A climber, even on the face of the house, would have difficulty in springing a catch by a secret method, raising the window and entering without leaving a track of some kind. He dismissed this supposition as untenable. He turned to Delaney, fully puzzled.

“Was there a climber’s set in that bag?” he asked sharply.

“I didn’t see any, Chief. I don’t think this fellow’s a climber. He ain’t built like one. His shoes are smooth on the bottom and his hands are all polished up around the nails. Looks to me, Chief, as if he might be able to pick most any kind of a lock.”

“The locks are out of the question!” snapped Drew. “I examined them. They’re not in line. Has anybody here any suggestions?”

Drew stared at the prisoner’s drawn, white face as he asked this question. “He wasn’t long in this part of the house,” said the captain. “The maid watched him. She thought perhaps he might take something.”

“Fosdick is to blame!” said Drew almost losing his temper. “He should have given strict orders at the door not to let anybody in till the case was settled. It’s all mixed up now. This man had ample opportunity to cover himself. A clever sneak could do most anything under your eyes without you seeing him operate. I suppose the only thing to do is to turn him over to Headquarters. He’ll get his!”

Loris frowned slightly at Drew’s manner. The detective did not act like his former self. She watched him pace the floor between the prisoner and the tapestries. He came back with a square set to his jaw and a hard glint in his olive eyes which gleamed like steel behind velvet.

“Stand him up!”

Delaney stared at his chief. He opened his mouth, then closed it firmly. “All right,” he said, reaching down. “I’ll stand him up if you let me give him an upper-cut. I don’t like these silent crooks. They’re snaky, Chief.”

“No unnecessary violence, gentlemen,” suggested Nichols as Loris laid her hand on his arm. “I’d like to have him alone for a few minutes—but outside. Go easy. Perhaps he’ll talk.”

“It may be your life or this man’s!” gritted Drew, stepping up to the prisoner after a sharp glance at Loris. “I pity him when Fosdick gets hold of him. He’ll talk then!”

The prisoner swayed with Delaney’s fingers gripping his collar in a vice-strong clutch. His white-pale face, his narrow-set eyes, his furtive glance to left and right like a cornered rat, brought Drew to mind of a man who was slowly breaking down. He lowered his brows and clutched the prisoner’s elbow with strong fingers that pressed deep through the coat sleeve.

“Out with it!” he demanded harshly. “It’s your last chance to save your miserable skin. You’re not going to get any mercy from the Commissioner. You know what he’ll do to you!”

The prisoner twisted loose from Drew’s clutch. His eyes wavered as he stared at Loris for a long second, then dropped to the floor. They closed in painful thought. Suddenly he blanched with passion.

“I’ve no use for you coppers!” he screamed shrillingly. “I hate the sight of you and your kind. Let me go! Let me go!”

“Fine chance,” whispered Delaney, tightening his grip on the prisoner’s collar. “You got a fine chance, you murderin’, thievin’, second-story man! I’d paste you if the lady wasn’t here! Sure I would, right between the eyes!”

“Easy,” said Drew. “Leave him to me. He’s thinking the thing over. I don’t mind telling him that the magpie beat him. That and the carelessness of Morphy in calling up when he must have known that Frick was in the front office of the prison. It’s always the way, Bert. He travels the fastest, up or down, who travels alone. It’s the lone star that gives us the trouble. There’s nobody to peach on him!”

The prisoner bit his upper lip. A slight sign of blood showed. He tasted this with the tip of his tongue. His eyes narrowed in calculation. He turned and faced Drew with slit-lidded intentness.

“I haven’t done a thing,” he whispered. “You ain’t got a thing on me.”

“Oh, no!” blurted Drew with heat. “I ain’t got a thing. I’ve been asleep since the time you murdered this girl’s father. I’ve had ten men on your trail since the beginning. I don’t hold the first murder so much against you as I do the projected one—which missed fire by a scant margin. You slayed a man with your devilish ingenuity, but you’re not going to put it over on his daughter. I’ve seen to that! I notice nobody has called up and said this was the Master talking. There’s a good reason.”

The prisoner fluttered his pale lashes and glanced at the telephone. He closed his eyes with a smile shadowing his lips.

“There’s a good reason,” repeated Drew. “You are not in some booth at Forty-first Street to make the connection. Morphy is in the strongest cooler. He’s booked for twenty years. After that he’ll get more. He can’t help you!”

“Oh, you coppers,” said the trouble-man. “Just give me five minutes and I’d show you. I don’t hold anything against the girl. I never saw her before.”

“You lie!”

“Why don’t you take these cuffs off-a-me? I can’t hit back.”

“I’d sooner take the chance outside,” said Drew, glancing at Loris. “I’d do it there!”

Delaney tightened his grip and half held the trouble-hunter in the air. He raised on his toes with the strain.

“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Loris. “I’ll have to ask you to stop this. I can’t let it occur in my house!”

“Miss Stockbridge,” said Drew with soft rebuke. “Miss Stockbridge, I’ve been in the detective business for twenty years. I never saw in that time a more dangerous man. He is the super-type who usually falls through the errors of other men. This fellow has brains. He’s an expert in telephony and in wireless. There are a number of patents in the patent office under his name.”

“Then he may be innocent, Mr. Drew.”

“He’s as guilty as the Kaiser!” exclaimed Delaney, twisting the prisoner around. “Look at him. He’s been trying to murder the finest little lady in the country. She never harmed anybody. She’s devoting most of her time to Red Cross work and the—Army,” added the big operative with a touch of brogue as he glanced at Nichols.

“But he has not said that he murdered father,” said Loris.

“Sure an’ he won’t say it. I know the breed of this snake. He wants nothing used against him in the trial. He’ll have the evidence of us four to show that he didn’t say anything. I never saw an innocent man who wouldn’t talk!”

“We’re getting nowhere,” objected Drew, taking command of the situation. “Take him out, Delaney, and turn him over to the Central Office bunch. They’ll take him down to Fosdick!”

The prisoner lifted his manacled hands. He dropped them after a slow glance at Drew’s square jaw.

“Come on!” said Delaney with a jerk backward.

“Wait!”

Drew and Nichols leaned forward. “Well?” asked the detective, as the prisoner bowed his head. “Well? Well?”

“Is that true about my brother—Morphy?”

“It is!” Drew said with ringing conviction. “It’s true! He’s out of this world. He’s buried alive and the key has been thrown away.”

“The jig is up, then,” said the trouble-man, turning toward the telephone. “Let me telephone,” he said in a whisper. “I want to use it,” he repeated faintly. “I’ll show you how that—that Stockbridge died.”

The prisoner lifted his manacled hands and held them toward Drew. “Let me loose,” he said, “and I’ll explain everything that I’ve done! I want it off my mind. I won’t sleep until you people are satisfied. I know you—you copper! I know Fosdick—the third degree artist.”

Drew frowned as he glanced at the cuffs. He scratched his dark hair and combed his fingers back toward his ears. He turned and glanced at Loris and Nichols in the opening between the two splendid rooms.

“I don’t like to take a chance with this fellow,” he admitted. “Do you want me to, Miss Stockbridge? It’s your life he was after, and he may be shamming now. You never can trust an opium addict. They have no soul.”

“I’ve as much as a copper’s!”

“Shut up, you!” boomed Delaney, threateningly. “Shut up! There’s a lady in this room!”

The prisoner clicked his cuffs together. He stared at the cheval glass and the telephone. “A lady?” he repeated through the corner of his lips. “A limb of the Stockbridge tree,” he said bitterly. “I hold nothing against her. I told you that before. But we promised the old man we’ll take care of her after we killed him, and she came near going—let me tell you that. I could have killed her with twenty words.”

“He’s rambling,” said Delaney, reaching for the prisoner. “The dope has gone to his head. I don’t believe there’s any––”

“Easy, Delaney,” warned Drew thoroughly on the alert. “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating this fellow. He acts like a man who has repented—who wants to right some of the wrong he has done. I don’t think we are taking chances in letting this fellow loose. He is unarmed. I tended to that. If he wants to ’phone—let’s let him.”

“Your case, Chief!”

Drew reached in his pocket and brought around a police regulation revolver. “I’ll have this right here!” he snapped as he slowly raised it. “You, Delaney, unlock one cuff and pass it to me. I’ll wrap the chain around my left wrist. If this fellow tries anything I’ll tend to his case—forever. These .44’s are made for stopping purposes, eh, Mr. Nichols?”

“They certainly are, Mr. Drew. I think we can handle that little man without trouble. What does he want to telephone for?”

“What for, Bert?” asked Drew, swinging and confronting the prisoner. “Do you want to say good-by to somebody?”

“Good-by is right,” whispered the trouble-man, extending his hands toward Delaney, who fished out a small key. “Yes, it’s good-by to somebody. Unlock them!”

“Hold on!” exclaimed Drew. “I don’t like that tone. You’ll have to act better than that, Bert. What do you want to get loose for? What number do you want? I’ll call up.”

“No, I got to do it. I want one hand free—that’s all.”

Loris stepped to Drew’s side. “Can there be anything about the room,” she asked, “that he wants to use? Perhaps he’ll pick something up and use it too quickly for you to stop him.”

“I don’t think so,” said Drew grimly. “This gun, Miss Stockbridge, happens to have a hair trigger. We’ll chance it—with your permission.”

“I’m not afraid for myself—but don’t you think the poor fellow should be prevented from harming himself. He acts just like a man who wanted to do something terrible. He seems to have given up hope.”

“A woman’s intuition,” mused Drew. “Perhaps a close one,” he said aloud. “You get back into the other room, Miss Stockbridge. Let Mr. Nichols stand in front of you for protection. I’m going to grant this fellow’s request. Delaney, unlock the left cuff!”

The key rattled in the tiny key-hole as Drew poised his revolver and drew a sight between the prisoner’s fluttering eyelids. “Stand right there,” whispered the detective tersely. “Right there,” he added, reaching with his left hand and taking the cuff and chain from the operative. “Now, Bert, you’re half free. What do you want with the telephone?”

The prisoner pinched his wrist and worked his hand like a hinge. A white mark, which slowly changed to red, showed where Delaney had clamped the handcuff down to its last notch. The trouble-man eyed this mark. His lips hardened. He strained on the chain as he lifted his fingers to his brow with a tired gesture.

“Hurry!” said Drew. “Hurry, Bert, or we’ll cuff you up again. Do you want to telephone?”

“Y—e—s!” The voice was tremulous and dry. “Yes! I’ll use it. I’ll show you how that pirate—Stockbridge—was killed. The yellow squealer!”

Loris raised her chin proudly. She leaned against Nichols in the doorway. “I won’t stand for that!” declared the soldier. “You are being insulted in your own house!”

“Wait, Harry! Something is going to happen! I know it is!”

“You’re right, lady,” whispered the prisoner. “It’s going to happen to—well, I don’t care. I’m done. The jig is up!”

Cuthbert Morphy shrugged his shoulders and turned toward Drew. He stared at the menacing revolver with a cryptic smile. “Get your man downstairs,” he said, in hollow tones. “Get him to go in the library and call up this number. Tell Central to connect the two ’phones in this house. Shout into the library transmitter when the connection is made.”

Drew frowned. “What’s all that for?” he asked.

“Do as I say.”

“I don’t know about that. I give orders here. What do you want that done for? I thought you wanted a number on the ’phone. I thought you would get somebody on the wire who would explain everything.”

“Everything will be explained, Inspector. Everything! I told you the jig was up with me. I mean it, too. There’s nothing left but the truth.”

Drew wound the handcuff chain tighter about his left wrist. He braced his feet and turned to Delaney. “Go downstairs,” he said, “and call up this number. Do what this fellow says. The number is Gramercy Hill 9764.”

Loris and Nichols lifted their brows as they turned toward each other. “I’m afraid,” said the girl. “Something is not right, Harry.”

“It’s the only way we’ll ever find out what this man means. If they take him away without letting him talk over the ’phone we’ll never know. Leave things to Mr. Drew. He’s armed! I’m armed! There’s no danger!”

“Get downstairs to the library!” Drew ordered. “Do what this man wants. Shout into the transmitter. Go now!”

Delaney lunged through the tapestries and unlocked the door to the hall. He paused there in thought. He turned and glanced back.

“Hurry!” exclaimed Drew. “Hurry now!”

The big operative cursed audibly as he descended the two flights of carpeted steps. He nodded to the Central Office man at the library door. He passed inside, rounded the table and stood by the ’phone. He picked up the receiver. His eyes wandered along the floor as he waited. A dark spot showed on the hardwood. It was where the millionaire’s blood had gushed forth from the bullet hole in the base of his brain.

“Gramercy Hill 9-7-6-4!” said Delaney with a bull’s voice.

“B-r-r-r-r-! B-r-r-r-r-! B-r-r-r-r-r!” sounded from the ringing-box of the silver plated telephone in the sitting-room of Loris Stockbridge’s suite.

The prisoner pulled at the chain as he leaned toward the telephone. “It’s ringing,” he said in a thin whisper. “Let me—let me listen in.”

Drew studied the entire situation before he granted permission. Loris and Nichols were framed between the silken portières. The captain held his army regulation revolver at his hip. Loris leaned forward with her dark eyes smoldering and intent. The blood had left her cheeks. They were white and tersely set. She seemed older to Drew. He smiled reassuringly, dropped his gun to his hip, pressed it against the prisoner and shoved him toward the ’phone as a “B-r-r-r-r-” sounded above the lifting roar of Delaney’s voice in the depths of the great mansion.

The room became charged and surcharged with electricity. A crackling sounded as Drew’s feet glided inch by inch over the silk rug. The storm outside whined and synchronized with the rise and fall of the great voice shouting “Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello, you!”

The trouble-man turned. His hand reached upward and lifted the hard-rubber receiver from the hook. His lids fluttered toward Loris. His eyes softened with memories. “I’m glad I didn’t do it!” he hissed across the room. “Good-by, lady—good-by!”

“Be careful!” snapped Drew, pressing the revolver firmly against the prisoner’s right side. “Be careful! This is a hair trigger!”

The trouble-man smiled a twisted, wan smile as he turned his head toward the transmitter and said huskily:

“Hello! Hello! You big copper! Shout on! See how loud you can curse me! That’s it. That—is—it!”

Drew heard Delaney’s voice rise in indignation. The taunt had spurned him to greater effort. The metallic diaphragm of the receiver roared and clicked. It echoed the voice. It stopped. It vibrated again. It reached a reed-like tune of high-pitched anger. The prisoner closed his eyes and stiffened. He pressed the receiver directly over his ear. He drew back on the chain and to one side. Drew’s face darkened with suspicion. It was too late. The detective had time to spring away as a cone of lurid light and flame shot out from the telephone diaphragm and splashed across the prisoner’s set face. A sharp detonation racked the perfumed air of the room. Smoke wreathed about the astonished Inspector’s head, and floated upward toward the ventilator.

Cuthbert Morphy’s muscles relaxed. He spun, sank to his knees, then pitched forward across the rug with a bullet in his brain. Drew untwisted the chain with a wrist flip, sprang forward toward the cheval-glass, and stamped his foot down upon the smoking telephone receiver as if it were the head of a rattlesnake.

He turned with clear light striking out from his eyes. He nodded toward the leaning form of the girl and the erect one of the captain. He divined in seconds how the murder of Montgomery Stockbridge had been accomplished. The full series of events and clues flashed through his brain. It was like an orderly array seen at a picture show.

Cuthbert Morphy, guised as a trouble-hunter in the employ of the telephone company, had devised a single-shot pistol out of a telephone receiver and had caused it to be actuated by the human voice so that it would always strike in the most vulnerable part of man’s anatomy—the ear.

With this lethal instrument he had slain the millionaire, and, when trapped and in danger of execution, he had employed the same method to bring about his own death. It was a fitting end to a life of crime and drug-brought imageries.

Delaney, with drawn gun and wild of eyes, burst through the tapestries and brought up with a dizzy lurch before the body of Cuthbert Morphy. He stammered and glared downward. He swung his heavy chin and stared at Loris and Nichols in the gloom of the further curtains. He clapped Drew on the shoulder with a heavy hand.

“Had to shoot him, eh, Chief? What’d he try? What—you got your foot on?”

“An electric pistol,” said Drew, with a grim smile distending his olive-hued lips. “An infernal machine, Delaney. I hope it isn’t a repeater. Cut that wire! Both wires! Get your knife out and cut through them, quick! I won’t take any chances.”

The big operative pocketed his revolver with a back swing of his right hand, brought it forward empty and ran it down his trouser pocket. He brought out a buck-horn jack-knife, pried it open, stooped and slashed through the two silk cords holding the receiver to the bottom of the transmitter which had fallen from the bracket.

Loris swayed with supple limbs. She raised her hands and pressed her unjeweled fingers against her face. She sobbed once, then turned and threw herself upon Nichols’ drab shoulder. “Harry,” she cried. “Oh, Harry—what happened? I didn’t see what happened!”

The captain glided an arm about her waist and half-carried, half-led her to a couch in the reading-room. “Rest here a minute,” he said, leaning down. “Be cool and as brave as you can. The trouble-man won’t trouble you any longer. He took his own medicine!”

Nichols returned to the sitting room in time to hear Drew exclaim, after Delaney had reached down and lifted the receiver, “The case is closed! This closes it with a bang! Give me that electric pistol, Delaney!”

The operative handed it over. “Get a big rug,” ordered Drew with sudden thought. “Cover that fellow over till we call the Central Office men and the coroner. I want to examine this receiver.”

“Right here on this little table would be a good place,” suggested Nichols, lifting off a handful of ivory ornaments and depositing them on top of a glass case. “I’ll spread a paper here. I’d like to see what’s inside that thing myself.”

“Do you know anything about electricity or telephony?” asked Drew, as he turned the hard-rubber receiver in his hand and stared at the listening end.

“Very little, Inspector. But fire-arms are in my line and that seems to be one.”

The detective nodded. “It’s one, all right,” he said, holding it out with a steady hand. “Looks harmless, don’t it? Two binding-posts on one end. A rubber cap on the other. Notice that diaphragm.”

Nichols took the receiver and squinted at the rubber cap. “By George!” he said. “This is odd. There’s a tiny hole drilled or punched in the center. It’s about the same size as the bore of a twenty-two caliber revolver.”

“Look at your hands!” said Drew. “What the devil,” he added with dawning conviction. “Say, Delaney, do you remember that spot of black under my left ear. The one you noticed after we left yesterday morning? The––”

“Sure, Chief. That’s where you got the smut—from that receiver!”

“I got it when I picked up the telephone in the library downstairs and tried to get Central. Do you remember how long she took? This is the same receiver in all probability. The trouble-hunter removed it from the library connections, loaded it, and brought it up here. It looks like any ordinary receiver. The telephone company have some with binding posts and some without. This is an earlier model.”

“The spot of black was from the first discharge when Stockbridge was killed!” exclaimed Delaney.

Drew ran his fingers around the inner rim of the rubber cap. He held them up. “See!” he exclaimed. “No wonder my neck was marked. That settles that mystery, Delaney. If we had any brains at all we would have connected the soot and the telephone. If we had done that we’d have solved the case early this morning, or yesterday morning. It’s after one, now!”

“This hole,” said Nichols, “was the only thing in the whole dastardly scheme that could have been seen. It’s the size of the end of a lead pencil. Funny you didn’t notice it?”

“I looked everywhere but there,” admitted Drew. “The receiver hangs with the diaphragm end down. That’s the reason I didn’t see it. Well—there’s always a reason,” he added. “Now, Delaney, fetch me that trouble-hunter’s satchel. We’ll see what this pistol is made of and how it is made. I venture to say that it is simple.”

Delaney awoke from his stupor and lifted a rug which he tossed over the body of Cuthbert Morphy. He wiped his hands with a finite motion. He wheeled and slouched lankily across the polished floor. He returned with the lineman’s kit.

“Pliers,” said Drew, as the big operative removed the straps and reached his hand inside. “I saw a pair there when we had it open before,” the detective added, unscrewing the rubber cap of the receiver and lifting the thin metal diaphragm from the face of two tiny magnets which were wound with fine silk wire.

“Regulation magnets,” whispered Nichols, leaning over the detective’s shoulder. “They’re regulation except there’s a hole drilled down between them. There must be a barrel all the way through the receiver.”

“We’ll see. Got those pliers, Delaney?”

The operative passed up a pair. “Ah,” chuckled the detective, unscrewing the binding-posts and lifting off a hard rubber cap. “Ah, see here!”

Delaney rose and peered over the captain’s shoulder straps. The two men watched Drew’s nimble fingers trace out the mechanism of the electric pistol.

“It’s simple!” declared the detective. “It’s very simple and ingenious in construction. It’s a crowning wonder to me that some one hasn’t used this sort of device to carry out a wholesale slaughtering. Suppose they never thought of it.”

Drew glanced at the silent mound under the Persian rug. “The wrong road,” he whispered tersely. “He took the wrong road. He was a mechanical and electrical genius. He was a patent expert.”

Delaney worked his brows up and down. “Shall I call Miss Stockbridge?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” Nichols said, turning and hurrying through the portières. He returned with Loris leaning upon his arm. Her eyes were glazed and tear-laden. She held a tiny, limp lace handkerchief between her trembling fingers.

“There’s no danger,” said Drew. “Come here, Miss Stockbridge,” he added. “I want to show you what was all ready for you.”

The detective raised the hard-rubber receiver. “Here we have the diaphragm,” he said, pointing. “It’s a round plate of soft iron. It’s secured to the rubber by an insulated ring. It is the part you press up to your ear when you listen at a telephone. There’s a small hole punched in this one. The same sized hole extends down through the center core, or magnet. This hole isn’t rifled. It couldn’t well be rifled save with special machinery. That’s why the bullet found in Mr. Stockbridge’s brain was without longitudinal scorings. It was fired from a smooth-bored pistol.”

“That’s what you thought!” blurted Delaney with loyalty.

“I was at sea,” said Drew. “Now,” he continued, “we have a live cartridge at the opposite end of this core from the diaphragm. See it?” Loris leaned over the little table.

“Right here!” The detective pointed. “That is a twenty-two cartridge with a cupronickle bullet. See the cap? See how it is held from coming back by those tiny screws about the rim?”

Loris nodded and gathered up her straying hair.

“Now,” continued Drew. “Now, this cartridge was exploded by the action of the human voice. Here’s a tiny spiral of very slender platinum wire. It must be number forty, at least. That’s very fine! This spiral is in series with the winding about the magnets. The same current pulsated by the human voice which actuates the receiver diaphragm, also passed through this spiral. Now,” Drew paused. “Now,” he added with rising voice, “here is a tiny charred piece of match-head, I guess. It was set in the coil. It flared when the wire became hot. The heat was sufficient to ignite the cap. See it!”

“I see it!” exclaimed Nichols.

“The action is simple,” continued Drew. “A pulsation of the current which was formed by the action of the vibrating, transmitter diaphragm, also pulsated the fine wire before it went to the receiver magnets. The louder the voice into the transmitter the more current—measured in fractions of amperes—passed through the spiral. It became sufficiently hot to flare the piece of match-head or whatever Cuthbert placed there. This flare was communicated to the percussion cap, or fulminate of mercury, at the base of the cartridge. This exploded the powder charge, which in turn projected the cupronickle bullet forward through the tube or the bore of the receiver and out through the thin, metal diaphragm, and––”

“What’s that?” asked the operative.

“Out through the hole in the diaphragm,” continued Drew, “and right into your ear or my ear, Delaney!”

“Not into mine!” exclaimed the operative. “I’ll never telephone as long as I live, Chief!”

“We’ll all be careful,” said Nichols, turning toward Loris.

Drew gathered together the different parts of the telephone receiver. “Evidence against Morphy,” he said dryly, as he dropped them into the side pocket of his coat. “They are our Exhibit A if he ever finishes that twenty years in the cooler.”

Loris reached out her hand. “You saved my life,” she said. “You saved it, Mr. Drew.”

“I blundered and blundered and blundered on this case,” admitted the detective frankly. “Now I’m going to request you to wait a few minutes before I call the coroner. Delaney has some questions. I feel sure he wants to ask me one or two.”