shoe would be sufficient confirmation of her story. She is
rather a stupid woman," he added, as he rose to go.

"I suppose she got the idea from the Comminge affair?"

"Undoubtedly," was the response; "but as I say, she is a stupid
woman. Vanity in crime is fatal; it leads the criminal to underrate
the intelligence of others. Lady Glanedale is intensely vain."

"The Board will probably want to thank you personally," said Mr.
Goodge as he shook hands; "but I'll try and prevent them from giving
you another walking-stick," he laughed as he opened the door.

CHAPTER XI THE MCMURRAY MYSTERY

I

Of the many problems upon which Malcolm Sage was engaged during the
early days of the Malcolm Sage Bureau, that concerning the death of
Professor James McMurray, the eminent physiologist, was perhaps the
most extraordinary. It was possessed of several remarkable features;
for one thing the murderer had disappeared, leaving no clue; for
another the body when found seemed to have undergone a strange
change, many of the professor's sixty-five years appearing to have
dropped from him in death as leaves from an autumn tree.

It was one of those strange crimes for which there is no apparent
explanation, consequently the strongest weapon the investigator has,
that of motive, was absent. As far as could be gathered the dead
professor had not an enemy in the world. He was a semi-recluse, with
nothing about him to tempt the burglar; yet he had been brutally
done to death in his own laboratory, and the murderer had made good
his escape without leaving anything likely to prove helpful to the
police.

One day as Gladys Norman, like "panting Time," toiled after her work
in vain, striving to tap herself up to date with an accumulation of
correspondence, the telephone-bell rang for what seemed to her the
umpteenth time that morning. She seized the receiver as a dog seizes
a rat, listened, murmured a few words in reply, then banged it back
upon its rest.

"Oh dear!" she sighed. "I wish they'd let him alone. The poor dear
looks tired out." She turned to William Johnson, who had just
entered. "Why don't you hurry up and become a man, Innocent," she
demanded, "so that you can help the Chief?"

William Johnson looked vague and shuffled his feet. His admiration
of Malcolm Sage's secretary rendered him self-conscious in her
presence.

"Sir John Dene and Sir Jasper Chambers to see the Chief," he
announced, obviously impresse