oglyphics traced upon it in bright
purple."

"Hieroglyphics, eh? That doesn't look quite so promising," said Cleek
in a disappointed tone. "It is quite possible that there may be more
than one web-footed man in the world, so of course----Hum-m-m! What
were these hieroglyphics, Mr. Narkom? Can you describe them?"

"I can do better, my dear chap," replied the superintendent, dipping
into an inner pocket and bringing forth a brown leather case. "I
took an accurate tracing of them from the dead hand this morning,
and--there you are. That's what's on his palm, Cleek, close to the
base of the forefinger running diagonally across it."

Cleek took the slip of tracing paper and carried it to the window,
for the twilight was deepening and the room was filling with shadows.
In the middle of the thin, transparent sheet was traced this:

[Illustration of a handwritten message]

He turned it up and down, he held it to the light and studied it
for a moment or two in perplexed silence, then of a sudden he faced
round, and Narkom could see that his eyes were shining and that the
curious one-sided smile, peculiar unto him, was looping up his cheek.

"My friend," he said, answering the eager query in the
superintendent's look, "this is yet another vindication of Poe's
theory that things least hidden are best hidden, and that the most
complex mysteries are those which are based on the simplest
principles. With your permission, I'll keep this"--tucking the
tracing into his pocket--"and afterward I will go to the mortuary
and inspect the original. Meantime, I will go so far as to tell
you that I know the motive for these murders, I know the means, and
if you will give me forty-eight hours to solve the riddle, at the
end of that time I'll know the man. I will even go farther and
tell you the names of the victims; and all on the evidence of your
neat little tracing. The web-footed man was one, James Peabody, a
farrier, at one time attached to the Blue Cavalry at Trincomalee,
Ceylon. Another was Joseph Miles, an Irishman, bitten early with
the 'wanderlust' which takes men everywhere, and in making rolling
stones of them, suffers them to gather no moss. Still another--and
probably, from the tattoo mark on his arm, the first victim
found--was Thomas Hart, ablebodied seaman, formerly in service
on the P & O line; the remaining two were Alexander McCurdy, a
Scotchman, and T. Jenkins Quegg, a Yankee. The latter, however,
was a naturalized En