nquisitive man, who
had evidently summoned him. I had lost sight, for a time, of the girl in
blue.

"Do it himself?" the conductor queried, after a businesslike glance at
the body.

"No, he didn't," the doctor asserted. "There's no weapon here, and the
window is closed. He couldn't have thrown it out, and he didn't swallow
it. What on earth are you looking for, man?"

Some one was on the floor at our feet, face down, head peering under the
berth. Now he got up without apology, revealing the man who had summoned
the conductor. He was dusty, alert, cheerful, and he dragged up with him
the dead man's suit-case. The sight of it brought back to me at once my
own predicament.

"I don't know whether there's any connection or not, conductor," I said,
"but I am a victim, too, in less degree; I've been robbed of everything
I possess, except a red and yellow bath-robe. I happened to be wearing
the bath-robe, which was probably the reason the thief overlooked it."

There was a fresh murmur in the crowd. Some body laughed nervously. The
conductor was irritated.

"I can't bother with that now," he snarled. "The railroad company is
responsible for transportation, not for clothes, jewelry and morals. If
people want to be stabbed and robbed in the company's cars, it's their
affair. Why didn't you sleep in your clothes? I do."

I took an angry step forward. Then somebody touched my arm, and I
unclenched my fist. I could understand the conductor's position, and
beside, in the law, I had been guilty myself of contributory negligence.

"I'm not trying to make you responsible," I protested as amiably as I
could, "and I believe the clothes the thief left are as good as my own.
They are certainly newer. But my valise contained valuable papers and it
is to your interest as well as mine to find the man who stole it."

"Why, of course," the conductor said shrewdly. "Find the man who
skipped out with this gentleman's clothes, and you've probably got the
murderer."

"I went to bed in lower nine," I said, my mind full again of my lost
papers, "and I wakened in number seven. I was up in the night prowling
around, as I was unable to sleep, and I must have gone back to the wrong
berth. Anyhow, until the porter wakened me this morning I knew nothing
of my mistake. In the interval the thief--murderer, too, perhaps--must
have come back, discovered my error, and taken advantage of it to
further his escape."

The inquisitive man looked at me f