he
murmured, "the way that hobo did beat us to it."

"'Some lokil man,' sez Kilbride," remarked Slavin musingly. "Just th'
last one ye'd think av suspectin'. An' Gully, begod, sittin' right
there! . . . talk 'bout nerve! . . ."

"But, good heavens!" burst out Yorke. "Whoever would have suspected
him?" He laughed a trifle bitterly. "It's all very well for us to turn
round now and say 'what fools we've been,' and all that. If we'd have
been the smart, 'never-make-a-mistake' Alecks, like we're depicted in
books, why, of course we'd have 'deducted' this right-away, I suppose?
Oh, Ichabod! Ichabod! An Englishman, too, by gad! I'll forswear my
nationality."

"Whatever could he have on Larry, though?" was Redmond's bewildered
query. "Say, that sure was a hell of a trick of his--using Windy's
horse--while the two of them were scrapping--trying to frame it up on
him!"

"Eyah," soliliquised the sergeant sagely. "'Twill all come out in th'
wash. Whin cliver, edjucated knockabouts like Gully du go bad; begob,
they make th' very wurrst kind av criminals. They kin pass things off
wid th' high hand an' kape their nerve betther'n th' roughnecks--ivry
toime.

"Think av that terribul murdherer, Deeming--an' thim tu
docthors--Pritchard an' Palmer, colludge men, all av thim. An' not on'y
men, but wimmin, tu. 'Member Mrs. Maybrick? All movin' in th' hoighth
av society!"

He was silent a moment, then his face fell. "I must take a run inta th'
Post an' see th' O.C. 'bout this," he resumed. "Tis an exthornary case.
There's just a possibility we may be all wrong--jumphin' at conclusions
tu much. Th' ould man! . . . I think I can see th' face av um. He'll
shling his pen across th' Ord'ly-room. 'Damn th' man! Damn th' man!'
he'll cry. 'Go you now an' apprehend um on suspicion thin! Fwhy shud I
kape a dog an' du me own barkin'?' An' thin he'll think betther av ut an'
chunt 'Poppycock, all poppycock! . . . As you were, Sarjint'--an' thin
he'll call in Kilbride. Eh! fwhat yez laughin' at, yeh fules?" he
queried irritably.

In spite of the gravity of the situation, the expression on their
superior's cadaverous face just then--its droll mixture of apprehension
and perplexity was more than Yorke and Redmond could stand. Awhile they
rocked up against each other--a trifle hysterically; it was the reaction
to nerves worked up to a pitch of intense excitement.

"Yez gigglin' idjuts!" growled Slavin. "Come on, let's g