itive. He connected in some manner with Morphy at Sing
Sing. Perhaps he went there as a visitor under the pretext of business
connected with Morphy's affairs. This scheme was hatched there in the
prison. It was financed by Morphy. It succeeded in so far as Mr.
Stockbridge was concerned. First the telephone call to the cemetery
superintendent. Then followed his visit to this house for the purpose
of fixing some fiendish device. Or----"

"He might have fixed the windows, Chief," suggested Delaney. "He might
have opened a catch and climbed in afterwards."

"He wasn't near the windows," said Drew. "He had something else in the
back of his crafty, twisted brain. He came and went out, with Mr.
Stockbridge and I watching him. He called up, then, and threatened the
death. He probably looped the library 'phone up with Sing Sing at or
about midnight. We have a record of both calls."

"Why," asked Loris, as Drew paused in thought. "Why did he have Morphy
connected with father? I can't see, Mr. Drew, that part of it. The
rest, you have told is, is very clear."

"Nor I yet," admitted the detective. "But that is a detail. It is
probably the criminal's ego, which is in every one of them, to notify
their prey that the hour has come. Morphy was an artist in crime. He
was a master mind in finance and chicanery. What better revenge could
he think of than to notify Mr. Stockbridge that death was about to
strike? It savors of Machiavelli and Borgia. Whom the gods destroy they
first make mad. He tried it on you."

"Gods!" blurted Delaney with ire. "Devils, you mean, Chief!"

"Yes, or worse!" said Drew, glancing sternly at the prisoner. "This
fellow," he added, "is the agent for the destroyer. Now how was it
done?"

Delaney glanced about the walls of the room in apprehension. "I'll take
another look around," he suggested heavily. "Maybe with them new ideas
we can locate something that might be planted for the killing."

Drew glanced sharply at the prisoner's face. A faint sneer was on the
thin lips. The wrists twisted and turned in the handcuffs. The steel
chain rattled metallically. Loris backed step after step toward the
shielding curtain and Harry Nichols. "Oh!" she said suddenly, as she
dropped her head against his breast. "Oh, Harry! there can't be
anything like _that."_

"Certainly not!" Drew hastened to ejaculate. "That's nonsense. If there
was anything planted in either of these three rooms, there's no one to
get in and ope