igure was slowly
emerging, carrying on a high-pitched argument with the chauffeur. The
figure stopped to read the taximeter, shook his fist at the chauffeur,
and approached me, muttering audibly. It was Davidson.

"That liar and thief back there has got me rung up for nineteen
dollars," he said, ignoring my amazement. "Nineteen dollars and forty
cents! He must have the thing counting the revolutions of all four
wheels!"

He walked around and surveyed my expense account, at the driver's elbow.
Then he hit the meter a smart slap, but the figures did not change.

"Nineteen dollars!" he repeated dazed. "Nineteen dollars and--look
here," he called to his driver, who had brought the cab close, "it's
only thirty cents here. Your clock's ten cents fast."

"But how--" I began.

"You back up to nineteen dollars and thirty cents," he persisted,
ignoring me. "If you'll back up to twelve dollars, I'll pay it. That's
all I've got." Then he turned on me irritably. "Good heavens, man," he
exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me you've been to eight drug-stores this
Sunday evening and spent nineteen dollars and thirty cents, and haven't
got a drink yet?"

"Do you think I'm after a drink?" I asked him. "Now look here, Davidson,
I rather think you know what I am after. If you don't, it doesn't
matter. But since you are coming along anyhow, pay your man off and come
with me. I don't like to be followed."

He agreed without hesitation, borrowed eight dollars from me to augment
his twelve and crawled in with me.

"The next address on the list is the right one," he said, as the man
waited for directions. "I did the same round yesterday, but not being a
plutocrat, I used the street-cars and my legs. And because you're a
decent fellow and don't have to be chloroformed to have an idea
injected, I'm going to tell you something. There were eleven roundsmen
as well as the sergeant who heard me read the note I found at the
Fleming house that night. You may have counted them through the window.
A dozen plain-clothes men read it before morning. When the news of Mr.
Fleming's mur--death came out, I thought this fellow Carter might know
something, and I trailed Delia through this Mamie Brennan. When I got
there I found Tom Brannigan and four other detectives sitting in the
parlor, and Miss Delia, in a blue silk waist, making eyes at every
mother's son of them."

I laughed in spite of my disappointment. Davidson leaned forward and
closed the windo