for some time."

"Hitchin, you're the most utter ass that ever breathed! You----"

"Doubtless, but at the same time murder is murder, and murder will out,
Fry!" the extraordinary crime student said steadily, as he arose, "Now
hear me quietly. I shall do nothing--you understand, _nothing_--until
afternoon, unless circumstances render action imperative. You know where
we stand; I know where we stand. I want to help you, to come to the
unfortunate end quietly if nothing else. I shall be in my apartment all
morning. Think it over. Talk it over with Boller. Then, when you have
decided that you need help, come and see me." He took up his case and
faced Anthony squarely. "At least I can see that you obtain a privilege
or two in the local prison," he concluded. "Good-by."

"Good Lord!" breathed Anthony Fry.

"And in going," said Hobart Hitchin, "let me leave just one caution
behind me, Fry. Have nothing shipped from this apartment until we have
talked again!"

Then Mr. Hitchin, courageously turning his back upon the pair, moved out
of the flat, leaving Johnson Boller and his oldest friend in a state of
partial paralysis. Anthony recovered in perhaps three seconds.

"That--that infernal idiot!" said Anthony. "Why, the lunatic asylums
have saner people in strait-jackets!"

"Maybe they have," Johnson Boller said hoarsely, "but all the same, many
a good man has sat in the electric chair on the strength of
circumstantial evidence not nearly so good as he made out!"

"Well, are you afraid of sitting there?" Anthony snapped.

Johnson Boller mopped his brow.

"Maybe not," he said. "But with the things he's pieced together he can
go to the police and have 'em around here in ten minutes! That
son-of-a-gun can have you and me locked up without bail, and--_that'd_
be nice, huh?"

"He can do nothing of the sort!"

"He can unless you show him a David Prentiss!" Mr. Boller urged. "He can
unless we have the girl out and tell him the truth and have her
corroborate it! Are you going to do that?"

Anthony Fry hugged his head for an instant; it was really aching now.

"No!" he said.

"It's better than being jugged, Anthony," suggested Johnson Boller. "You
know, I've got some reputation as well as you, and--say, what did you
mean by introducing her as my wife?"

"Was there anything else to do?"

"Why not as your sister?"

"Because Hitchin knows perfectly well that I haven't a sister, of
course. Don't fume and thresh around li