h, thirty grains of
morphia. He had this morphia put up in five-grain capsules. He bought
this at the drug store on the corner of Blank Street and Nemo Avenue."

"Good gracious!" answered Stratton. "Then to get morphia he must have
had a physician's certificate. Did you find who the physician was that
signed the certificate?"

"My dear sir," said the Chicago man, "this person is himself a
physician, unless I am very much mistaken. I was told that this was the
portrait of Stephen Roland. Am I right?"

"That is the name."

"Well, then, he is a doctor himself. Not doing a very large practice, it
is true, but he is a physician. Did you not know that?"

[Illustration: "Here's the detailed report."]

"No," said Stratton; "how stupid I am! I never thought of asking the
man's occupation."

"Very well, if that is what you wanted to know, here's the detailed
report of my investigation."

When the man left, Stratton rubbed his hands.

"Now, Mr. Stephen Roland, I have you," he said.

CHAPTER XII.

After receiving this information Stratton sat alone in his room and
thought deeply over his plans. He did not wish to make a false step, yet
there was hardly enough in the evidence he had secured to warrant his
giving Stephen Roland up to the police. Besides this, it would put the
suspected man at once on his guard, and there was no question but
that gentleman had taken every precaution to prevent discovery. After
deliberating for a long while, he thought that perhaps the best thing he
could do was to endeavour to take Roland by surprise. Meanwhile, before
the meditating man stood Brenton and Speed, and between them there was a
serious disagreement of opinion.

* * * * *

"I tell you what it is," said Speed, "there is no use in our interfering
with Stratton. He is on the wrong track, but, nevertheless, all the
influence we can use on him in his present frame of mind will merely do
what it did before--it will muddle the man up. Now, I propose that we
leave him severely alone. Let him find out his mistake. He will find it
out in some way or other, and then he will be in a condition of mind to
turn to the case of Jane Morton."

"But don't you see," argued Brenton, "that all the time spent on his
present investigation is so much time lost? I will agree to leave him
alone, as you say, but let us get somebody else on the Morton case."

"I don't want to do that," said Speed; "because George