do not."

"And whether he does or not, what do you think you're doing?" Johnson
Boller asked impatiently. "Acting a moving picture or----"

"Mr. Boller, may I trouble you to keep out of this for a little?" the
crime student asked amazingly. "Later on I may wish to ask you a
question or two, and if you will answer them it will serve me and--Mr.
Fry. Just now, suppose we draw up around the table here, so that it will
not be necessary to shout?"

Anthony was there already, scowling. Johnson Boller, with a grunt,
shuffled over and took a chair; because this Hitchin creature, on the
face of him, was the morning's latest full-blown freak, and Johnson
Boller did not wish to miss anything.

Also, if the chance came, he meant to inform Hitchin that Mary was not
Mrs. Boller at all, if it could be contrived without casting too much of
a slur on Mary--although that could wait until they learned the cause of
Hitchin's pale cheek and his keen, excited eye.

Hitchin, however, had relaxed in the most curious fashion; he was
smiling whimsically at Anthony now and, although his eye was across the
room, one felt that it could turn with one one-thousandth of a second's
warning and peer through Anthony's soul.

"Fry," he said thoughtfully, "I have been interested in crime for a good
many years. I have, as it were, dabbled in it partly for the love of the
thing and partly because, on one occasion or another, it has been
possible for me to extend help that would not otherwise have been
extended."

"That's a mysterious statement," Anthony said.

"Crime--some of it--is mysterious," smiled Mr. Hitchin. "Motives are
usually more mysterious. Mistaken motives--motives formed under
misapprehension--are most mysterious of all. But the consequences of
crime," said Mr. Hitchin, whirling suddenly on Anthony, "are inevitable,
inescapable as the rising of the sun."

Johnson Boller shook his head. The man had always been queer; now,
overnight, he, too, had gone crazy! Anthony, who was largely nerves this
morning, asked:

"What the devil are you talking about, anyway? I'm not trying to be
unpleasant, Hitchin, but I'm not myself this morning and this rambling
discourse about crime is rather trying."

"You are not yourself this morning?" Hitchin repeated slowly, with a
very keen smile at Anthony.

"No."

"Why are you not yourself this morning, Fry?"

"What? Because I lost some sleep last night, I suppose."

"Ah!" Hitchin cried softly. "An