in
"Wormwood," stared at the speaker in bewilderment.

"Pardon me, sir, but I completely fail to understand what you are
talking about."

"Don't try that con stuff on us; we won't fall for it," advised the
lieutenant. He smiled with satiric satisfaction; he was something of
a wit in the department. "But if you ain't sure who you are, I'll
put you wise: Mr. Thomas Preston, forger of the Jefferson letters,
it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to yourself. Shake hands,
gents."

Mr. Pyecroft continued his puzzled stare. Then a smile began to break
through his bewilderment. Then he laughed.

"So that's it, is it! You take me for that Thomas Preston. I've read
about him. He must be a clever fellow, in his own way."

He sobered. "But, gentlemen, if I had the clever qualities attributed
to Mr. Preston, I am sure I could apply those qualities to some more
useful, and even more profitable, occupation."

"You don't do it bad at all, Preston," observed the lieutenant. "Only,
you see, it don't go down."

"I trust," Mr. Pyecroft said good-humoredly, "that it isn't going to
be necessary to explain to you that I am not Thomas Preston."

"No, that won't be necessary at all," replied the waggish lieutenant.
"Not necessary at all. For you can't."

Mr. Pyecroft raised his eyebrows.

"Gentlemen, you really seem to be taking this matter seriously! Why,
you two officers in uniform saw me only last night here with my
two sisters, and any one in the neighborhood can tell you my sister
Matilda has been housekeeper in this house for twenty years."

That tone was most plausible. The two uniformed policemen looked at
their superior dubiously.

"Never you mind what they seen last night," the lieutenant commented
dryly. "And never you mind about Matilda."

"But you are forgetting that I am Matilda's brother," said Mr.
Pyecroft. "Matilda, I am your brother, am I not?"

"Y--yes," testified Matilda, who by the corpulent pressure of four
crowded officers was almost being bisected against the edge of the
stationary wash-bowl.

"And you, Angelica; I'm your brother, am I not?"

"Yes," breathed Mrs. De Peyster from beneath the bedclothes.

Mr. Pyecroft turned in polite triumph to the lieutenant.

"There, now, you see."

"But, I don't see," returned that officer. "I know you're Thomas
Preston. Jim, just slip the nippers on him. And there's something
queer about these women. Just slip the bracelets on Matilda, too, and
carry do