uters; evidently he
lived in Stamford and did business in New York. Accepting this as the
correct hypothesis the rest of the riddle was easy to read. Mr. Parker,
coming to town that morning, had brought with him his dinner rig in a
suit case.

Somewhere, probably at his office, he had changed from his everyday garb
to the clothes he brought with him, then he had packed his street
clothes into the bag and brought it uptown with him and checked it at
the Grand Central, intending after keeping his evening engagements to
reclaim the baggage before catching a late train for Stamford.

Fine! Results from Trencher's standpoint could hardly have been more
pleasing. Exulting inwardly over the present development and working
fast, he stripped off his clothing down to his shoes and his
undergarments--first, though, emptying his own pockets of the money they
contained, both bills and silver, and of sundry personal belongings,
such as a small pocketknife, a fountain pen, a condensed railway guide
and the slip of pasteboard that represented the hat and coat left behind
at the Clarenden. Then he put on the things that had come out of the
Stamford man's bag--the shirt, the collar and the tie, and finally the
outer garments, incidentally taking care to restore to Parker's coat
pocket all of Parker's letters.

This done he studied himself in the glass of the chiffonier and was
deeply pleased. Mirrored there he saw a different man from the one who
had rented the room. When he quit this hotel, as presently he meant to
do, he would not be Trencher, the notorious confidence man who had shot
a fellow crook, nor yet would he be the Thompson who had sent a darky
for a bag, nor the Tracy who had picked a guest's pocket at a
fashionable restaurant, nor yet the Potter who had engaged a room with
bath for a night. From overcoat and hat to shoes and undergarments he
would be Mr. Marcus K. Parker, a thoroughly respectable gentleman,
residing in the godly town of Stamford and engaged in reputable
mercantile pursuits in Broad Street--with opened mail in his pocket to
prove it.

The rest would be simplicity. He had merely to slip out of the hotel,
carrying the key to 1734 with him. Certainly it would be as late as noon
the following day before chambermaid or clerk tried to rouse the
supposed occupant of the empty room. In all likelihood it would be later
than noon. He would have at least twelve hours' start, even though the
authorities were nimble-