yrd took it and read:

"Expect a suitable man by the midnight express. He
will bring a letter."

A flush mounted to the detective's brow.

"You see, sir," he observed, "I was right when I told you I was not the
man."

"I don't know," returned the other, rising. "I have not changed my
opinion. The man they send may be very keen and very well-up in his
business, but I doubt if he will manage this case any better than you
would have done," and he moved quietly toward the door.

"Thank you for your too favorable opinion of my skill," said Mr. Byrd,
as he bowed the other out. "I am sure the superintendent is right. I am
not much accustomed to work for myself, and was none too eager to take
the case in the first place, as you will do me the justice to remember.
I can but feel relieved at this shifting of the responsibility upon
shoulders more fitted to bear it."

Yet, when the coroner was gone, and he sat down alone by himself to
review the matter, he found he was in reality more disappointed than he
cared to confess. Why, he scarcely knew. There was no lessening of the
shrinking he had always felt from the possible developments which an
earnest inquiry into the causes of this crime might educe. Yet, to be
severed in this way from all professional interest in the pursuit cut
him so deeply that, in despite of his usual good-sense and correct
judgment, he was never nearer sending in his resignation than he was in
that short half-hour which followed the departure of Dr. Tredwell. To
distract his thoughts, he at last went down to the bar-room.

VI.

THE SKILL OF AN ARTIST.

A hit, a very palpable hit.--HAMLET.

HE found it occupied by some half-dozen men, one of whom immediately
attracted his attention, by his high-bred air and total absorption in
the paper he was reading. He was evidently a stranger, and, though not
without some faint marks of a tendency to gentlemanly dissipation, was,
to say the least, more than ordinarily good-looking, possessing a large,
manly figure, and a fair, regular-featured face, above which shone a
thick crop of short curly hair of a peculiarly bright blond color. He
was sitting at a small table, drawn somewhat apart from the rest, and
was, as I have said, engrossed with a newspaper, to the utter exclusion
of any apparent interest in the talk that was going on at the other end
of the room. And yet this talk was of the most animated description, and
wa