others in his prosaic existence.

* * * * *

"McIlvaine's disappearance coming so close on Richardson's gave us a
beautiful story," said Harrigan. "The only trouble was, it wasn't new
when the _Globe_ got around to it. We had lost our informant in
Richardson; it never occurred to Alexander or Leopold to telephone us or
anyone about McIlvaine's unaccountable absence from Bixby's. Finally,
Leopold went over to McIlvaine's house to find out whether the old
fellow was sick.

"A young fellow opened up.

"'Where's McIlvaine?' Leopold asked.

"'I'm McIlvaine,' the young fellow answered.

"'Thaddeus McIlvaine,' Leopold explained.

"'That's my name,' was the only answer he got.

"'I mean the Thaddeus McIlvaine who used to play cards with us over at
Bixby's,' said Leopold.

"He shook his head. 'Sorry, you must be looking for someone else.'

"'What're you doing here?' Leopold asked then.

"'Why, I inherited what my uncle left,' said the young fellow.

"And, sure enough, when Leopold talked to me and persuaded me to go
around with him to McIlvaine's lawyer, we found that the old fellow had
made a will and left everything to his nephew, a namesake. The
stipulations were clear enough; among them was the express wish that if
anything happened to him, the elder Thaddeus McIlvaine, of no matter
what nature, but particularly something allowing a reasonable doubt of
his death, the nephew was still to be permitted to take immediate
possession of the property and effects."

"Of course, you called on the nephew," I said.

Harrigan nodded. "Sure. That was the indicated course, in any event. It
was routine for both the press and the police. There was nothing
suspicious about his story; it was straightforward enough, except for
one or two little details. He never did give us any precise address; he
just mentioned Detroit once. I called up a friend on one of the papers
there and put him up to looking up Thaddeus McIlvaine; the only young
man of that name he could find appeared to be the same man as the
present inhabitant's uncle, though the description fit pretty well."

"There was a resemblance, then?"

"Oh, sure. One could have imagined that old Thaddeus McIlvaine had
looked somewhat like his nephew when he himself was a young man. But
don't let the old man's rigmarole about rejuvenation make too deep an
impression on you. The first thing the young fellow did was to get rid
of that machine of