estion to be solved. Inquiry through the ordinary
sources of information failed to throw any light on the matter. Starkey
was not known to the Toronto detectives or its police officers. None of
the local members of the press, save one, had come in contact with him.
A few hotel clerks knew him by sight, but even these walking
directories, who are generally supposed to have a knowledge of
everything under the sun at their fingers' ends, could not tell his
place of abode. A few knew him under the alias of Hardy, and that was
the extent of their information. Several correspondents, who, upon
request from papers in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other
cities, had inquired into his relations with Long, reported that the two
were not on friendly terms. This information, however, came to them from
Long himself, who referred all inquirers to the Toronto _Empire_ of
February 21, in which issue, he claimed, he had "written up" and
"roasted" the Chicago fugitive. Right here was a coincidence of a
startling nature. It was on that date that the furniture found in the
blood-stained cottage had been purchased.

"You must either see that Starkey and I are at outs," said Long to
Sergeant Reburn, of the Toronto detective force, "or else that we
planned this thing as early as the 21st of February, and prepared this
article to throw people off the scent as to our true relations. I leave
it to your common sense to determine which is the proper version to take
of it."

The article was examined, and the result was surprising. Long had
"roasted" Starkey, not by his own name, but under the alias of "A. B.
Darlingford." This individual, it was stated, was residing in a
fashionable section of Bloor street, and was on intimate terms with a
number of the most aristocratic families of the city.

No better disguise could have been conceived for the real Starkey, or,
as he was generally known, "W. J. Hardy," and who was boarding at the
time in an humble house on the northwest corner of Wellington and Johns
streets. He had never passed under the name of "Darlingford," nor had he
ever lived on Bloor street, while his favorite haunts, instead of being
in the aristocratic circles, had been the bar of the Walker House, which
was presided over by two young Irishmen, and Kieche's European Hotel, of
which another Irishman was the proprietor.

To establish the fact that the relations of Long and Starkey were not
only pleasant, but extremely intimate,