ou want?"

"I've taken a violent interest in your whiskers, sir."

"Come, now, none of your guying----"

"Oh, I ain't fooling. I've taken such a huge interest in your whiskers
that I'd like to have a handful as a keepsake."

And so saying the detective grabbed them.

A slight pull dislodged them from the man's face, causing him to
recoil, giving utterance to a smothered cry of alarm.

Old King Brady chuckled.

Holding up a false beard, he glanced at the man.

"Why," exclaimed Harry, "it's Mr. Mason!"

"Bless my heart, so it is," added the old detective, feigning to be
very much astonished at the discovery. "How strange! Why, Mr. Mason,
what in the world are you going around masquerading this way for, at
such a late hour of the night?"

The broker's nephew was furious over his exposure.

He knew it was useless to pretend he was not the man they mentioned and
he swore at them, and cried, fiercely:

"That's none of your infernal business."

"How angry you are. My! My! Keep cool, Mr. Mason. Wrath isn't going to
mend matters for you in any way."

"Get out of my path, you old meddlesome fool!"

"Now, don't get excited," laughed Old King Brady. "You must know, sir,
that we are engaged upon very important business. Some time ago we saw
you come out of that house, and thinking you were a burglar we followed
you down to the East river."

"You followed me?" gasped Mason, with a guilty start.

"Oh, dear, yes. And we saw you meet Sim Johnson on the pier, and we saw
you get into the rowboat with your bundle, and we saw the little old
man with the gray beard row you out on the stream, and then we saw you
all pull up the object you had towing astern, take it into the boat,
work over it a while, toss it back, and row away."

Mason's face had grown deathly pale.

He eyed the detectives with such a vindictive look that they could see
he would have knocked their heads off if he dared.

Finally, though, he regained his composure a little and asked:

"What object did you see us pull out of the water?"

"Really, I can't say. You were too far from the dock for us to
distinguish exactly what it was. But it looked something like the
corpse of a man."

"You must be crazy, Brady!"

"Do you think so? We don't. But you've aroused our curiosity about that
mysterious trip on the river and we'd like to know what it all meant."

"You'll never learn from me."

"Oh, I suppose not--voluntarily. Anyway, you ought to tell us