ar, at that. The Mole St. Nicholas is a harbor in
the north of Haiti which would make a wonderful naval base--in fact,
there has already been some underground talk about it--and such a naval
base would be mighty close to the Panama Canal. Suppose we start with
the theory that this is what your conspirator chaps have in mind.

"Now, my boy, we have to find out some explanation for the meeting in so
remote a place as the Citadel. Those three men wouldn't have gone to
all that trouble and risked all that chance of being discovered and
exposed unless there were some astonishingly important reasons. What can
these be? Well, if we are right in thinking that a naval base is what
these fellows are after, it is sure that they would need a hinterland of
country behind it. The Mole St. Nicholas, as I remember, is at the end
of a peninsula formed by a range of mountains, the key to which is La
Ferriere. So, to make themselves safe, they would need to control both
at the same time. Hence the necessity of knowing exactly the defensive
position of the Citadel. How does that sound to you?"

"I'd never thought of it, sir," said Stuart, "but the way you put it,
just must be right. I was an idiot not to think of it myself."

"Age and experience count for something, Youngster," said the Managing
Editor, smiling. "Don't start off by thinking that you ought to know as
much as trained men."

Stuart flushed at the rebuke, for he saw that it was just.

"Now," continued the Editor, pursuing his train of thought, "we have to
consider the personalities of the conspirators. You'll find, Stuart, if
you go into newspaper work, that one of the first things to do in any
big story, is to estimate, as closely as you can, the character of the
men or women who are acting in it. Newspaper work doesn't deal with cold
facts, like science, but with humanity, and humans act in queer ways,
sometimes. A good reporter has got to be a bit of a detective and a good
deal of a psychologist. He's got to have an idea how the cat is going to
jump, in order to catch him on the jump.

"Now, so far, we know that the conspirators are at least three in
number. There may be more, but we know of three. One is a Haitian negro
politician. One is a Cuban, who, from your description, seems to be a
large-scale crook. One is an Englishman, and, in your judgment, he is of
a different type from the other two. Yet the fact that he seems to
possess an agent on the eastern shore of C