ce has not picked
up a pointer. Strange, strange, that the job was so neatly done!"

"What do you mean?" quickly queried Ferris.

"Oh! Any gonoph can see that the man was murdered for the stuff!"
resolutely said McNerney. "He was no fellow to clear out! His life
was clean as a whistle! I know all about him!"

"How can you prove that?" hotly said the excited lawyer. "Because
all the men on the force, from here to his rooms, and around town,
knew him for a clean, civil, honest, steady fellow--one in ten
thousand. Thief, he? Never!" said McNerney. "Not on your life!"

Ferris stopped. "I will be at the Fifth Avenue, night and day,"
said the vice-president, "either there or at our office. You can
come to my rooms at your will. I'll leave word for your admittance.
You'll have your money in ten minutes if you turn up any sign of
him."

As the men separated McNerney strolled down to the corner where he
had seen Clayton and Leah Einstein enter the carriage. "Here the
poor fellow began his ride to death," mused Dennis. "I must have
that reward--all of it--and this fellow's five thousand. Had he
a hand in it? I'll spot him from to-night.

"But the Jew boy has the key of the secret! Of course, he's crafty
and cowardly. In a month he will throw off his fear. When I catch
him with that woman I've got the right scent of the whole thing.
Then, I'll hunt up the hack-driver. The boy is the key. And if the
force finds out nothing in two weeks the game is mine! If the boy
is arrested, I'll get in with the woman and carriage clue. I can
wait!"

While Jack Witherspoon and Doctor Atwater conferred at the Hoffman,
there was a private meeting at Robert Wade's mansion, which brought
together all the suspended officials.

Robert Wade, with indignation against Ferris' brutal treatment,
announced the policy of a united resistance, a joint appeal to
Hugh Worthington, and the demand of an Investigation Committee of
Directors. "We will wait for Mr. Worthington's vindication," said
Wade, in an unanswerable tone.

"Then you will wait until eternity," sadly said Walter Edson.
"Here is the ten o'clock edition of the Evening Telegram. Mr. Hugh
Worthington, the well-known capitalist, died at Pasco, Washington,
this morning, from injuries received in a railroad accident."

When the hubbub had subsided, the voice of Wade was heard. "Gentlemen,
we must act in a passive defence until the Worthington Estate
sends in a man to control the