witted enough to join up the smaller mystery of
an abandoned suit case belonging to one man and an abandoned outfit of
clothing belonging to another, with the greater and seemingly
unconnected mystery of the vanishment of the suspect in the Sonntag
homicide case. Long before this potential eventuality could by any
chance develop, he meant, under another name and in another disguise, to
be hidden away at a quiet boarding house that he knew of in a certain
obscure factory town on a certain trolley line leading out from
Pittsburgh.

Now to clear out. He bestowed in various pockets his money, his knife,
his pen and his railway guide, not one of these having upon it any
identifying marks; he pouched his small change and his roll of bills.
Nothing remained to be disposed of or accounted for save the pasteboard
square that represented the coat and hat left behind at the Clarenden.
When this had been torn into fine and indistinguishable bits and when as
a final precaution the fragments had been tossed out of the window, the
last possible evidence to link the pseudo Parker with the real Trencher
in this night's transactions would be gone.

He had the slip in his hands and his fingers were in the act of twisting
it in halves when the thought that something had been overlooked--something
vitally important--came to him; and he paused to cogitate. What had been
forgotten? What had he overlooked? What had he left undone that should
have been done? Then suddenly appreciation of the thing missing came to
him and in a quick panic of apprehension he felt through all the pockets
of Parker's suit and through the pockets of his own garments, where he
had flung them down on the bed, alongside the rifled suit case.

His luck piece was gone--that was it! The old silver trade dollar, worn
thin and smooth by years of handling and with the hole drilled through
the centre of it--that was what was gone--his token, his talisman, his
charm against evil fortune. He had carried it for years, ever since he
had turned crook, and for nothing in this world would he have parted
from it.

In a mounting flurry of superstitious terror he searched the pockets
again, with fingers that shook--this man who had lost faith in human
beings, who had no hope and no fear for the hereafter, who had felt no
stabs of regret or repentance for having killed a man, whose thoughts
had never known remorse for any misdeed of his. The second hunt and the
third and the fourth