ear through the exciting events that followed on that fatal
night. He thought and dreamed of it until he had made a working theory.
Then one day, with a boldness that he seldom assumed when in the sacred
Presence, he walked into the office and laid his plans before the
editor. They talked together for some time, and the editor seemed hard
to convince.

"It would be a big thing for the paper," he said, "if it only panned
out; but it is such a rattle-brained, harum-scarum thing. No one under
the sun would have thought of it but you, Skaggs."

"Oh, it 's bound to pan out. I see the thing as clear as day. There 's
no getting around it."

"Yes, it looks plausible, but so does all fiction. You 're taking a
chance. You 're losing time. If it fails----"

"But if it succeeds?"

"Well, go and bring back a story. If you don't, look out. It 's against
my better judgment anyway. Remember I told you that."

Skaggs shot out of the office, and within an hour and a half had boarded
a fast train for the South.

It is almost a question whether Skaggs had a theory or whether he had
told himself a pretty story and, as usual, believed it. The editor was
right. No one else would have thought of the wild thing that was in the
reporter's mind. The detective had not thought of it five years before,
nor had Maurice Oakley and his friends had an inkling, and here was one
of the New York _Universe's_ young men going miles to prove his idea
about something that did not at all concern him.

When Skaggs reached the town which had been the home of the Hamiltons,
he went at once to the Continental Hotel. He had as yet formulated no
plan of immediate action and with a fool's or a genius' belief in his
destiny he sat down to await the turn of events. His first move would be
to get acquainted with some of his neighbours. This was no difficult
matter, as the bar of the Continental was still the gathering-place of
some of the city's choice spirits of the old regime. Thither he went,
and his convivial cheerfulness soon placed him on terms of equality with
many of his kind.

He insinuated that he was looking around for business prospects. This
proved his open-sesame. Five years had not changed the Continental
frequenters much, and Skaggs's intention immediately brought Beachfield
Davis down upon him with the remark, "If a man wants to go into
business, business for a gentleman, suh, Gad, there 's no finer or
better paying business in the world than