he operative's huge hands. "I'll do that," he said with a
short laugh. "Now hurry! No, wait."

"What is it, Chief?" asked Delaney in the doorway.

"If the address is downtown, or in Brooklyn, what would you do then?"

"I'd get the office, Chief, and have Harrigan rush over a man. This
super at Gramercy Hill ought to be able to stall that call long enough
for us to connect--with both hands and both feet."

"Go to it!" said Drew, pressing Delaney out through the door. "Good
luck," he added as he twisted the key and shot the bolt. "Now we are
getting there," he said softly. "Unfortunately for that devil
up-the-river, he has to phone from _one_ place. That's the thing which
will beat him. I hate to think what would happen if he was outside
giving orders. He could get away with it, nicely."

Drew never felt surer of himself in a case. He tested the lock and bolt
for a second time. He draped the tapestries and strode into the sitting
room with his shoulders held back--a sanguine light in his olive eyes.

"Well, Miss Stockbridge," he said, pausing in the center of the room
and smiling. "I think we are on the verge of big things. The attempt
cannot be made to-night without we have plenty of warning."

"Good!" exclaimed Loris, standing upright and arranging her lavender
gown about her slipper-tops. "That's the best news I've heard in a long
time, Mr. Drew," she added, glancing archly at the detective, beneath
her dark lashes. "Has that Mr. Delaney found any one?"

Drew raised his brows. Loris' question was not exactly a compliment to
the big operative, who meant so well.

"He hasn't found anything," said Drew, with soft, pleasing voice. "He
hasn't done that, but I'm venturing my future reputation that he will
find our man--the trouble-man perhaps."

Harry Nichols stepped to Loris' side. "We were children there," he
admitted frankly. "At least I was. I never suspected him at all. His
manners were so pleasant. He seemed so weak and intent about his
business."

"Ah!" said Drew, raising his finger. "That's it! He was intent about
_his_ business. Only, this particular business concerned the taking of
a human life in cold blood. Mr. Stockbridge was murdered by this fiend,
in the guise of a harmless trouble-hunter. How the murder was
accomplished and by what lethal method we do not know. I'm acting on
the theory that if we catch the man we will find out how it was done.
If I can't make him--Fosdick, Commissioner of Detectiv