clue, except--well, I didn't know criminals in
America knew that stunt."

"What stunt?"

"Why, you know how keen the new detectives are on the finger-print
system? Well, the first thing some of the up-to-date criminals in Europe
did was to wear rubber gloves so that they would leave no prints. But
you can't work very well with rubber gloves. Last fall in Paris I heard
of a fellow who had given the police a lot of trouble. He never left a
mark, or at least it was no good if he did. He painted his hands lightly
with a liquid rubber which he had invented himself. It did all that
rubber gloves would do and yet left him the free use of his fingers with
practically the same keenness of touch. Fletcher, whatever is at the
bottom of this affair, I feel sure right now that you have to deal with
no ordinary criminal."

"Do you suppose there are any relatives besides those we know of?" I
asked Kennedy when Fletcher had left to summon the servants.

"No," he replied, "I think not. Fletcher and Helen Bond, his second
cousin, to whom he is engaged, are the only two."

Kennedy continued to study the library. He walked in and out of the
doors and examined the windows and viewed the safe from all angles.

"The old gentleman's bedroom is here," he said, indicating a door. "Now
a good smart noise or perhaps even a light shining through the transom
from the library might arouse him. Suppose he woke up suddenly and
entered by this door. He would see the thief at work on the safe.
Yes, that part of reconstructing the story is simple. But who was the
intruder?"

Just then Fletcher returned with the servants. The questioning was long
and tedious, and developed nothing except that the butler admitted that
he was uncertain whether the windows in the library were locked. The
gardener was very obtuse, but finally contributed one possibly important
fact. He had noted in the morning that the back gate, leading into a
disused road closer to the bay than the main highway in front of the
house, was open. It was rarely used, and was kept closed only by an
ordinary hook. Whoever had opened it had evidently forgotten to hook it.
He had thought it strange that it was unhooked, and in closing it he had
noticed in the mud of the roadway marks that seemed to indicate that an
automobile had stood there.

After the servants had gone, Fletcher asked us to excuse him for a
while, as he wished to run over to the Greenes', who lived across the
bay. Miss