that case."

"I rather agree with Mr. Crane, Seaton. If it were an ordinary
affair--and I am as sure it is not as the police are that it is--a
reward of that size would get us our man within two days. As it is, I
doubt very much that the reward will do us any good. I'm afraid that it
will never be claimed."

"Wonder if the Secret Service could help us out? They'd be interested if
it should turn out to be some foreign power."

"I took it up with the Chief himself, just after it happened last night.
He doesn't think that it can be a foreign country. He has their agents
pretty well spotted, and the only one that could fill the bill--you know
a man with that description and with the cold nerve to do the job would
be apt to be known--was in San Francisco, the time this job was pulled
off."

* * * * *

"The more you talk, the more I am convinced that it was DuQuesne
himself," declared Seaton, positively. "He is almost exactly my size and
build, is the only man I know of who could do anything with the solution
after he got it, and he has nerve enough to do anything."

"I would like to think it was DuQuesne," replied the detective,
thoughtfully, "but I'm afraid we'll have to count him out of it
entirely. He has been under the constant surveillance of my best men
ever since you mentioned him. We have detectaphones in his rooms, wires
on his telephone, and are watching him night and day. He never goes out
except to work, never has any except unimportant telephone calls, and
the instruments register only the occasional scratching of a match, the
rustle of papers, and other noises of a man studying. He's innocent."

"That may be true," assented Seaton doubtfully, "but you want to
remember that he knows more about electricity than the guy that invented
it, and I'm not sure that he can't talk to a detectaphone and make it
say anything he wants it to. Anyway, we can soon settle it. Yesterday I
made a special trip down to the Bureau, with some notes as an excuse, to
set this object-compass on him," taking one of the small instruments
from his pocket as he spoke. "I watched him a while last night, then
fixed an alarm to wake me if the needle moved much, but it pointed
steady all night. See! It's moving now. That means that he is going to
work early, as usual. Now I'm morally certain that he's mixed up in this
thing somewhere, and I'm not convinced that he isn't slipping one over
on your men some wa