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stars. The tall buildings stabbed the blackness, fingers of fire. Here,
midway to the clouds, was another world, a world of luxury, of brilliant
toilettes, of light laughter, the popping of corks, the joy of living,
with everywhere the vague perfume and flavour of femininity.

The young man from the country touched his cousin's arm suddenly.

"Tell me," he enquired, "who is the man at a table by himself? The waiters
speak to him as though he were a little god. Is he a millionaire, or a
judge, or what?"

The New Yorker turned his head. For the first time his own face showed
some signs of interest. His voice dropped a little. He himself was
impressed.

"You're in luck, Alfred," he declared. "That's the most interesting man in
New York--one of the most interesting in the world. That's Sanford Quest."

"Who's he?"

"You haven't heard of Sanford Quest?"

"Never in my life."

The young man whose privilege it was to have been born and lived all his
days in New York, drank half a glassful of wine and leaned back in his
chair. Words, for a few moments, were an impossibility.

"Sanford Quest," he pronounced at last, "is the greatest master in
criminology the world has ever known. He is a magician, a scientist, the
Pierpont Morgan of his profession."

"Say, do you mean that he is a detective?"

The New Yorker steadied himself with an effort. Such ignorance was hard to
realise--harder still to deal with.

"Yes," he said simply, "you could call him that--just in the same way you
could call Napoleon a soldier or Lincoln a statesman. He is a detective,
if you like to call him that, the master detective of the world. He has a
great house in one of the backwater squares of New York, for his office.
He has wireless telegraphy, private chemists, a little troop of spies,
private telegraph and cable, and agents in every city of the world. If he
moves against any gang, they break up. No one can really understand him.
Sometimes he seems to be on the side of the law, sometimes on the side of
the criminal. He takes just what cases he pleases, and a million dollars
wouldn't tempt him to touch one he doesn't care about. Watch him go out.
They say that you can almost tell the lives of the people he passes, from
the way they look at him. There isn't a crook here or in the street who
doesn't know that if Sanford Quest chose, his career would be ended."

The country cousin was impressed at last. With staring eyes and opened
mouth,