why is Bronson making
the overtures?"

"I think he was lying," Hotchkiss reflected. "Bronson hasn't reached his
figure."

"It's a big advance, Mr. Hotchkiss, and I appreciate what you have done
more than I can tell you," I said. "And now, if you can locate any of
my property in this fellow's room, we'll send him up for larceny, and at
least have him where we can get at him. I'm going to Cresson to-morrow,
to try to trace him a little from there. But I'll be back in a couple of
days, and we'll begin to gather in these scattered threads."

Hotchkiss rubbed his hands together delightedly.

"That's it," he said. "That's what we want to do, Mr. Blakeley. We'll
gather up the threads ourselves; if we let the police in too soon,
they'll tangle it up again. I'm not vindictive by nature; but when a
fellow like Sullivan not only commits a murder, but goes to all sorts
of trouble to put the burden of guilt on an innocent man--I say hunt him
down, sir!"

"You are convinced, of course, that Sullivan did it?"

"Who else?" He looked over his glasses at me with the air of a man whose
mental attitude is unassailable. "Well, listen to this," I said.

Then I told him at length of my encounter with Bronson in the
restaurant, of the bargain proposed by Mrs. Conway, and finally of
McKnight's new theory. But, although he was impressed, he was far from
convinced.

"It's a very vivid piece of imagination," he said drily; "but while it
fits the evidence as far as it goes, it doesn't go far enough. How about
the stains in lower seven, the dirk, and the wallet? Haven't we even got
motive in that telegram from Bronson?"

"Yes," I admitted, "but that bit of chain--"

"Pooh," he said shortly. "Perhaps, like yourself, Sullivan wore glasses
with a chain. Our not finding them does not prove they did not exist."

And there I made an error; half confidences are always mistakes. I could
not tell of the broken chain in Alison West's gold purse.

It was one o'clock when Hotchkiss finally left. We had by that time
arranged a definite course of action--Hotchkiss to search Sullivan's
rooms and if possible find evidence to have him held for larceny, while
I went to Cresson.

Strangely enough, however, when I entered the train the following
morning, Hotchkiss was already there. He had bought a new note-book, and
was sharpening a fresh pencil.

"I changed my plans, you see," he said, bustling his newspaper aside for
me. "It is no discredit to your