a little gray man of about sixty, and
seemed utterly dazed and overcome.

"What's wrong, Mr. Parakeet?" asked the building manager. "I didn't
know you had your safe moved out."

"But, no!" panted the bewildered old man. "I didn't. It's gone. Just
gone. Last night at five o'clock I locked the office, and it was
there, and everything was straight. What did you do? Who took it?"

The building manager conducted the poor old man into the office, shut
the door, and asked the crowd to disperse. He sat Mr. Parakeet down
into the most comfortable chair he could find, and then barked
snappily into the telephone a few times. Then he sat and stared about
him, stopping occasionally to reassure the old man and ask him to be
patient until things could be investigated.

The building manager was an efficient man and knew his building and
his tenants. He knew, as thoroughly as he knew his own office, that
Mr. Parakeet had a medium-sized A. V. & L. Co.'s safe weighing about
three tons, that could not be carried up the elevator when Mr.
Parakeet had moved in, and had been hoisted into the window with block
and tackle. He knew that it was physically impossible for the safe to
go down any of the elevators, and knew that none of the operators
would dare move any kind of a safe without his permission.
Nevertheless, with the aid of a police-sergeant, his night-shift, and
the night-watchmen of his building and adjacent ones, it was
definitely established that nothing had been moved in or out of the
North American Building during the preceding twenty-four hours, either
by elevator or through a window to the sidewalk.

* * * * *

The newspapers took up the mystery with a shout. The prostrating loss
suffered by Mr. Parakeet, amounting to over a hundred thousand
dollars, added no little sensation to the story. A huge safe,
disappearing into thin air, without a trace, and in its place an old
wooden crate! What a mouthful for the scareheads! For several days
newspapers kept up items about it, dwindling in size and strategic
importance of position; for nothing further was ever found. Every bit
of investigation, including that by scientific men from the University
of Chicago, was futile; not a trace, not a suggestion did it yield.

Six days later the tall scareheads leaped out again: "Another Safe
Disappears! Absolutely No Trace! Some time during the night, the
six-foot steel safe of the Simonson Loan Company vani