could find no trace of
him, although they scoured the neighborhood for an hour.

When they met again, both looked very much disgusted and Harry said:

"He has eluded us, it seems."

"Completely," Old King Brady answered, angrily.

"We may as well give up hunting for him."

"Yes. It's a waste of time at present."

They returned to the house and told Lizzie the bad news, and the old
detective said:

"I expected to pump some valuable information from him about Ronald
Mason. But that hope is gone. We shall have to watch out for that pair.
In the meantime, if you wish us to recover your father's body, dead or
alive, you must maintain the utmost secrecy of what we said, Miss
Dalton."

"You can depend upon my discretion," replied the girl, quietly.

The detectives promised to exert every effort to find her father, and
finally took their leave of her.

On the following day the Bradys went to the office of Solomon Gloom,
the undertaker, on Seventh avenue, and met him in his office.

He looked nothing like the man who personated him.

It was just as the Bradys suspected.

Having described the man who had the wagon and carried off the body,
Old King Brady asked the undertaker:

"Did you give that man one of your business cards?"

"I certainly did," replied Mr. Gloom.

"And rented out your wagon to him?"

"Yes, sir. I also got them a Health Board permit for small-pox, so they
could remove their relative's body. The party died of small-pox."

That satisfied the Bradys to the means the abductors employed to
personate the undertaker and carry out their plot.

The officers next went to the Union Club and made an effort to secure
the telegram which brought Mr. Dalton from the clubhouse the night he
was summoned away and vanished from view.

The steward found it in the rubbish-basket and gave it to them.

The message was worded as follows:

"Oliver Dalton: Meet me secretly, nine to-night, in house No. --
West Thirty-sixth street, about mail robberies.

Old King Brady."

Here was a startling surprise for the detectives.

"Did you send that message?" asked Harry, of his partner.

"No. It's a forgery!" declared the old detective.

"I thought so."

"Whoever sent it knew the broker was going to have us run down the
thieves who were robbing him."

"As Ronald Mason admitted to us that he practically ran the business,
he must have known that we were goin