hed across Manhattan Island. Placed in two lines, they would
probably have reached twice as far. Arranged in a procession they would
have taken an hour in passing a saloon: easily that.

In the whole vast building all was uproar. Telephones, megaphones and
gramophones were ringing throughout the building. Elevators flew up and
down, stopping nowhere.

Only in one place was quiet--namely, in the room where sat the big man
on whose capacious intellect the whole organization depended.

Masterman Throgton, the general manager of the _Planet_, was a man in
middle life. There was something in his massive frame which suggested
massiveness, and a certain quality in the poise of his great head which
indicated a balanced intellect. His face was impenetrable and his
expression imponderable.

The big chief was sitting in his swivel chair with ink all round him.
Through this man's great brain passed all the threads and filaments that
held the news of a continent. Snap one, and the whole continent would
stop.

At the moment when our story opens (there was no sense in opening it
sooner), a written message had just been handed in.

The Chief read it. He seemed to grasp its contents in a flash.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. It was the strongest expression that this
solid, self-contained, semi-detached man ever allowed himself. Anything
stronger would have seemed too near to profanity. "Good God!" he
repeated, "Kivas Kelly murdered! In his own home! Why, he dined with me
last night! I drove him home!"

For a brief moment the big man remained plunged in thought. But with
Throgton the moment of musing was short. His instinct was to act.

"You may go," he said to the messenger. Then he seized the telephone
that stood beside him (this man could telephone almost without stopping
thinking) and spoke into it in quiet, measured tones, without wasting a
word.

"Hullo, operator! Put me through to two, two, two, two, two. Is that
two, two, two, two, two? Hullo, two, two, two, two, two; I want
Transome Kent. Kent speaking? Kent, this is Throgton speaking. Kent, a
murder has been committed at the Kelly residence, Riverside Drive. I
want you to go and cover it. Get it all. Don't spare expense. The
_Planet_ is behind you. Have you got car-fare? Right."

In another moment the big chief had turned round in his swivel chair (at
least forty degrees) and was reading telegraphic despatches from
Jerusalem. That was the way he did things.

CH