to-day."

The Chief of the United States Secret Service was tapping with nervous
irritation on the desk before him.

"Yes, yes!" he agreed, and again he looked oddly at his operative.
"Perhaps there is something to that; you work along that line, Del:
you can have a free hand. Take a few days off, a little vacation if
you wish. Yes--and ask Sprague to step in from the other office; he
has the personnel list."

* * * * *

Robert Delamater felt the other's eyes follow him as he left the room.
"And that about lets me out," he told himself; "he thinks I've gone
cuckoo, now."

He stopped in a corridor; his fingers, fumbling in a vest pocket, had
touched the little metal spheres. Again his mind flashed back to the
chain of events he had linked together. He turned toward an inner
office.

"I would like to see Doctor Brooks," he said. And when the physician
appeared: "About that man who was murdered at the hotel, Doctor--"

"Who died," the doctor corrected; "we found no evidence of murder."

"Who was murdered," the operative insisted. "Have you his clothing
where I can examine it?"

"Sure," agreed the physician. He led Delamater to another room and
brought out a box of the dead man's effects.

"But if it's murder you expect to prove you'll find no help in this."

The Secret Service man nodded. "I'll look them over, just the same,"
he said. "Thanks."

Alone in the room, he went over the clothing piece by piece. Again he
examined each garment, each pocket, the lining, as he had done before
when first he took the case. Metal, he thought, he must find metal.

But only when a heavy shoe was in his hands did the anxious frown
relax from about his eyes.

"Of course," he whispered, half aloud. "What a fool I was! I should
have thought of that."

The soles of the shoes were sewed, but, beside the stitches were metal
specks, where cobbler's nails were driven. And in the sole of one shoe
were three tiny holes.

"Melted!" he said exultantly. "Crazy, am I, Chief? This man was
standing on a wet floor; he made a perfect ground. And he got a jolt
that melted these nails when it flashed out of him."

He wrapped the clothing carefully and replaced it in the box. And he
fingered the metal pellets in his pocket as he slipped quietly from
the room.

* * * * *

He did not stop to talk with Doctor Brooks; he wanted to think, to
ponder upon the incredible proof of