ton.

"It was identical with the print of Bristow's fingers on the glass top of
a table in his hotel room there. I didn't depend on my own judgment for
that. I had with me an expert on finger-prints. And finger-prints, as you
all know, never lie.

"All this established the fact, beyond question, that Bristow had been
secretly in the living room of Number Five before, or at the time of, the
commission of the crime."

He paused, giving them time to appreciate the full import of that chain
of facts.

For the space of half a minute, the room was a study in still life. The
sound of Fulton's grating teeth was distinctly audible. Bristow made a
quick move, as if to speak, but checked the impulse.

"In Washington," Braceway resumed, "he had the hemorrhage. It was
faked--a red-ink hemorrhage. Before the arrival of the physician who was
summoned, Bristow had ordered a bellboy to wrap the 'blood-stained'
handkerchief and towel in a larger and thicker towel and to have the
whole bundle burned at once.

"This, he explained to the boy, was because of his desire that nobody be
put in danger of contracting tuberculosis.

"By bribing the porter who had been directed to do the burning, I got a
look at both the handkerchief and the towel. They were soaked right
enough, thoroughly soaked--in the red ink.

"The physician was easily deceived because, when he came in, all traces
of the so-called blood had been obliterated. Altogether, it was a clever
trick on Bristow's part.

"His motive for staging it and for arranging for a long and uninterrupted
sleep was clear enough. There was something he wanted to do unobserved,
something so vital to him that he was willing to take an immense amount
of trouble with it. Golson's detective bureau let me have the best
trailer, the smoothest 'shadow,' in the business--Tom Ricketts.

"At my direction he followed Bristow from the Willard Hotel to the
electric car leaving Washington for Baltimore at one o'clock. Reaching
Baltimore at two-thirty, Bristow pawned the emeralds and diamonds at two
pawnshops. He caught the four o'clock electric car back to Washington,
and was in his room long before six, the hour at which his nurse, Miss
Martin, was to wake him.

"On the Baltimore trip he had a left leg as sound as mine and wore no
brace of any kind. He did wear a moustache, and bushy eyebrows, which
changed his appearance tremendously. Also, he had changed the outline of
his face and the shape of his