At the door the hotel-boy appeared abruptly.

"Telegram for you, Mr. Garrison," he said. "Been at the office about
an hour, but nobody knew where you was."

Garrison took it and tore it open. It read:

"Return as soon as possible. Important.

"DOROTHY."

"Any answer?" inquired the boy.

"No," said Garrison. "What's the next train for New York?"

"Eleven-forty-five," answered the boy. "Goes in fifteen minutes."

"All right. Have my suit-case down at the office."

He returned to his work.

Ignoring the few piled-up papers in the drawer, he took up the three
cigars beside the box, the ones which had come from Hardy's pocket, and
scrutinized them with the most minute attention.

So far as he could possibly detect, not one had been altered or
repasted on the end. He did not dare to cut them up, greatly as he
longed to examine them thoroughly. He opened the box from which they
had come.

For a moment his eye was attracted and held by the birthday
greeting-card which Dorothy had written. The presence of the card
showed a somewhat important fact--the box had been opened once before
John Hardy forced up the lid, in order that the card might be deposited
within.

His gaze went traveling from one even, nicely finished cigar-end to the
next, in his hope to discover signs of meddling. It was not until he
came to the end cigar that he caught at the slightest irregularity.
Here, at last, was a change.

He took the cigar out carefully and held it up. There could be no
doubt it had been "mended" on the end. The wrapper was not only
slightly discolored, but it bulged a trifle; it was not so faultlessly
turned as all the others, and the end was corkscrewed the merest
trifle, whereas, none of the others had been twisted to bring them to a
point.

Garrison needed that cigar. He was certain not another one in all the
box was suspicious. The perpetrator of the poisoning had evidently
known that Hardy's habit was to take his cigars from the end of the row
and not the center. No chance for mistake had been permitted. The two
end cigars had been loaded, and no more.

How to purloin this cigar without having it missed by Mr. Pike was a
worry for a moment.

Garrison managed it simply. He took out a dozen cigars in the layer on
top and one from the layer next the bottom; then, rearranging the
underlying layer so as to fill in the empty space, he replaced the
others in perfect order in the topmost row,