a fool I was. But I am going to die
clean. No rat is going to send me to Hell!"

And then he dropped.

In the room the struggle kept on--for an hour and then two. At last the
screaming ceased, and the only sound was the gnawing of the rats, the
crunching of their teeth and their satisfied, little squeaks of
pleasure.

The next morning Winifred Willowby called on the Chief of the Secret
Service of New York. With him were several men from Washington.

"I want to tell you something," he said. "A large group of men borrowed
my office to have a meeting last night. They wanted privacy and secrecy
and they had heard of my place in the Empire Trust Building. So I loaned
them the entire floor for the night. But my janitors tell me that
something terrible happened. An army of rats invaded the place, as they
have been doing with other places in the city, and literally ate every
man there; that is, all except one, a fellow by the name of Consuelo,
and he preferred to jump out of a window and die clean on the pavement."

"Consuelo?" asked the Chief. "Not the Old Man? Not _that_ Consuelo?"

"I think that is the one. Here is a list of the men who were there. I
thought you might like to look it over before you gave it to the
papers."

The Chief took the list and read it, puzzled.

"Do you mean these men were there last night?"

"I understand so."

"And now they are dead?"

"I think so. Of course, that is for the coroner to say."

"Do you know who these men were?"

"I suppose they were business associates of Consuelo. At least, that is
what he told me."

"They were the hundred biggest gangsters in America. They were the
brains of everything vicious in American society. There is not a man
there whom we have not been after for years, but we just couldn't pin
anything on them. Their death in one night gives the decent people in
our country a new lease on life. We can go ahead now and get the little
fellows. But, tell me, Mr. Willowby, how did it happen?"

"I told you. They had a meeting and the rats came. You know there was a
rat racket which no one thoroughly understood. Anyway, the rats
came--and killed them. No one can tell exactly what did happen, because
everyone who was there was killed. That is all. I am sorry that it
happened in my office--but I thought I was doing the man a favor to loan
him the place for the meeting."

* * * * *

That night Crawford and Willowby were talking th