, standing beside him,
began to read off the names she had taken down.

Reuben Jeffries was the fifth to come up to the table, hand Ormond his
check and receive a suitcase from the secretary. Then Cavender got
unhurriedly to his feet.

"Dr. Ormond," he said, loudly enough to center the attention of
everyone in the room on him, "may I have the floor for a moment?"

Ormond appeared surprised, then startled. His glance went up to Reuben
Jeffries, still standing stolidly beside him, and his face slowly
whitened.

"Why ... well, yes, Wally." His voice seemed unsteady. "What's on your
mind?"

Cavender faced the right side of the room and the questioning faces
turned towards him.

[Illustration]

"My name, as you know," he told the advanced students, "is Wallace
Cavender. What you haven't known so far is that I am a police
detective, rank of lieutenant, currently attached to the police force
of this city and in temporary charge of its bunco squad."

He shifted his gaze towards the front of the room. Ormond's eyes met
his for a moment, then dropped.

"Dr. Ormond," Cavender said, "you're under arrest. The immediate
charge, let's say, is practicing medicine without a license. Don't
worry about whether we can make it stick or not. We'll have three or
four others worked up by the time we get you downtown."

For a moment, there was a shocked, frozen stillness in the lecture
room. Dr. Ormond's hand began to move out quietly towards the checks
lying on the table before him. Reuben Jeffries' big hand got there
first.

"I'll take care of these for now, Dr. Al," Jeffries said with a
friendly smile. "The lieutenant thinks he wants them."

* * * * *

Not much more than thirty minutes later, Cavender unlocked the door to
Dr. Ormond's private office, went inside, leaving the door open behind
him, and sat down at Ormond's desk. He rubbed his aching eyes, yawned,
lit a cigarette, looked about in vain for an ashtray, finally emptied
a small dish of paper clips on the desk and placed the dish
conveniently close to him.

There had been an indignant uproar about Dr. Al's arrest for a while,
but it ended abruptly when uniformed policemen appeared in the two
exit doors and the sobering thought struck the students that any
publicity given the matter could make them look personally ridiculous
and do damage to their business and social standing.

Cavender had calmed their fears. It was conceivable, he