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Show JXTpwpQt" (Hroid Jpririprlv "RtoriPQ I By Arth ReeVe I II. THE TANGO THIEF. w Y husband has such a jealous l i disposition. He will never be-I be-I f 1 lieve the truth never!" X Agatha Seabury moved nervously ner-vously in the deep easy chair beside Kennedy's desk, leaning forward, uncomfortably, tense lines marring the beauty of her fine features. "You say you have never written a line to the fellow nor he to you?" Kennedy asked. "Not a line, not a scrap until I received re-ceived that typewritten letter about which I Just told you," she repeated vehemently, ve-hemently, meeting his penetrating gaze without flinching:. "Why, Professor Kennedy, Ken-nedy, as heaven is my witness, I have never done a wrong thiner except to meet him now and then at afternoon dances." "Have you the letter here?" asked Craig quickly. Mrs. Sea bury reached into her neat leather party case and pulled out a carefully care-fully folded sheet of note paper. It was all typewritten, down to the very signature itself. Evidently the blackmailer black-mailer had taken every precaution to protect pro-tect . himself, for even if the typewriting could be studied and identified it would be next to impossible to get at the writer thrcM It and locate the machine on it was written among the thou-ilnds thou-ilnds in the city. Kennedy studied the letter carefully, then handed it over to me, nodding to Mrs. Seabury that it was all right for me to see It. "No ordinary fellow. I'm afraid," he commented musingly, adding, "this thief of reputations." I read, beginning with the insolent familiarity fa-miliarity of "Dear Agatha." "I hope you will pardon me for'wrtting to you," the letter continued, "but I find that I am in a rather difficult position financially. As you know, in the present disorganized state of the stock market, investments which in ' normal times are good are now almost valueless. Still, I must protect, those I already have without with-out sacrificing them. "It is therefore necessary that I raise fifty thousand dollars before the end of the week, and I know of no one to appeal to but you who have shared so many pleasant stolen hours with me. "Of course, I understand all that you have told me about Mr. Seabury and his violent nature. Still, I feel sure tha one of your wealth and standing in the community com-munity can find a way to avoid all trouble from that quarter. Naturally, I should prefer to take every precaution to pre-- pre-- vent the fact of our intimacy from coming com-ing to Mr. Sea bury 's knowledge. But I am really desperate and feel that you alone can help me. "Hoping to hear from you soon, I am, , "Your old tango friend, "H. MORGAN SHERBURNE." She was watching our faces anxiously as we read. "Oh," she cried wildly, glancing from one to the other of us, "he's so clever about it, too. J I didn't know what to do. T had 'only my jewels. I thought of all the schemes I had ever read, of pawn-in? pawn-in? them, of having paste replicas made, of trying to collect the burglary insurance, insur-ance, of " "But you didn't do anything like that, did you?" interrupted Craig hastily. "No. no," she cried. "I thought If I did. then, it wouldn't he long before this Sherburne would be back again for more. Oh, Ti utterly . wretched crushed."' 'jjr scoundrel !" I muttered, vennedy shook his head at me slowly. jCailing names won't help matters now," he remarked tersely. Then in an encour- aging tone he added: "You have done ust the right thing. Mrs. Seabury, in not sorting to pay the blackmail. The secret orhe success of these fellows is that tlieirtictims prefer losing jewelry and money to going to the police and having a lot of unpleasant notoriety." "Yes, I know that," she agreed hastily. "But my husband ! Tf he hears he will believe the worst, and I really love and respect Judson though," she added, "he l might have seen that I liked dancing I and innocent amusements of the sort still. I am not an eld woman." Judson Seabury, I knew from hearsay, was a man of middle age lo whom, as to so many, business anil tho making of money j had loomed as large as life itself. Com-: Com-: pet i tors had even accused him of being I ruthless when he was convinced that he wa right. i "Where did you usually er meet Sher-j Sher-j burne?" asked Craig, casually guiding the ! conversation. j '"Why at the Vanderveer always," she replied. "U'oulri you mind meeting him there i again this afternoon so that I could see ; him?" asked Kennedy. "Perhaps it would , be best, anyhow, to let him think that f you are going to do as he demands, so I that we can gain a little time." She looked up. startled. "Yes I can do that but don't you think it is risky? Do you think there is any way I can get free from him? Suppose he makes a new demand. What shall I do?" "Mrs. Sea bur;'," assured Craig earnestly, ear-nestly, "I'll take up your case. Clever as the man is. there must be some way to get at him." The look of relief that crossed her face as Kennedy promised to aid her was almost al-most painful. As often before, I could scarcely envy Kennedy In his ready assumption as-sumption of another's problems that seemed so baffling. n It meant little, perhaps, per-haps, to us whether we succeeded. But to her It meant happiness, perhaps honor itself. She hesitated no longer. "I'll be there I'll meet him at 4," she murmured, as she rose and made a hurried departure. For some time after she had gone Kennedy Ken-nedy sat considering what she had told us. As for myself, I cannot say that I was thoroughly satisfied that she had told all. It was not to be expected. "How do you figure that woman out?" ! I queried at length. i Kennedy looked at me keenly from un-I un-I der knitted brows. "You tneun, do I believe be-lieve her story of her relations with this . fellow, Sherburne?" he, returned thought-! thought-! fully. ! "Exactly," I assented, "and what she 1 said about her regard for her husband, too." I Before Kennedy could reply the door ! buzzer sounded and the colored boy from the lower hall handed a card to Craig, i with an apology about the house tele-phone tele-phone switchboard being out of order. As Kennedy laid the card on the table 1 before us, with a curt "Show the gentleman gentle-man in" to the boy, I looked at it in blank amazement. It read, "Judson Seaoury." Before I could utter a word of comment com-ment on the strange coincidence the husband was sitting in the same chair in which his wife had sat less than half an hour before. Judson Sea bur v was a rather distinguished distin-guished looking man of the solid, business busi-ness type. Merely to meet his steel gray eye was enough to tell one that this man would brook no rivalry in anything he undertook. Craig twirled the card .in his fingers, as if to refresh his mind on a name otherwise oth-erwise unfamiliar. I was wondering whether Seabury might not have trailed his wife to our office and have came to demand an explanation. It was with some relief that I found he had not. "Professor Kennedy," h began nervously, nervous-ly, hitching his chair closer, without further fur-ther introduction, in ( the manner of a man who was accustomed to having his own way In any matter he undertook, "I am in a most peculiar situation." Seabury paused a . moment. Kennedy, nodded acquiescence, and the man suddenly sud-denly blurted out, "I I don't know whether .I'm being slowly poisoned or not !" I covered my own surprise by a quick glance at Craig. His face was impassive as he narrowly searched Seabury' s. - I knew, though, that back of his assumed calm, Craig was doing some rapid thinking think-ing about the ethics of listening to both parties in the case. However, he said nothing. "I may as well tell you," Seabury" proceeded, pro-ceeded, with the air of a man who for the first time Is relieving his mind of something that has beeri. weighing heavily on him. "that for some time I have not been exactly er easy in my mind about the actions of my wife. It's not that I actually know anything about any Indiscretions Indis-cretions on Agatha's part, but well, there have been little 'things hints that she was going frequently to the dansants. and that sort of thing, you know. Lately, too, I have seen a change in her manner toward me, I fancy. Sometimes I think she seems to avoid me, especially during the last few days. Then, asrain, as this morning, she seems to be er too solicitous." solicit-ous." He passed his hand over his forehead, as if to clear it. I noticed that he had a peculiar look, a feeble stale of the body which lift was at times at pains to conceal, con-ceal, a look which the doctors call, I believe, be-lieve, cachectic "I mean." he added hastily, as if it might as well he said first as last, "that she seems to be much concerned about my health, my food ' "Just what is it that you actually know, not what you fear?" interrupted Kennedy, Kenne-dy, perhaps a little brusquely. "Well," Seabury answered slowly. "I suffer a good deal from such terrible dyspepsia. Professor Kennedy. My stomach stom-ach and disestiun are all upset bad health and growing- weakness pain, discomfort. dis-comfort. I've tried all sorts of cures, but the doctors don't seem to be doing- me much good. I have begun to wonder whether it. is a case for the doctors, after all. Why, the whole thing is getting on my nerves so that I'm almost afraid to at." he concluded. "You have eaten nothing today, then, I am to understand?" asked Craig. 'Not even breakfast this morning," he replied. "Good!" exclaimed Kennedy. "That will make at just so much easier to use a test I have in mind to determine whether wheth-er there is anything in your suspicions." He had risen and gone over to a cabinet. "Would you mind baring your arm a moment?" he asked Seabury. With a sharp, little instrument, carefully careful-ly sterlized, Craig pricked a vein in the man's nrm. Slowly a few drops of darkened dark-ened venous blood "welled out." A moment later Kennedy caught them in a sterile test tube and sealed the tube. "I feel sure that the test I shall make will tell me positively, eoon, whether vour fears are well grounded or noi, Mr. Seabury." Kennedy concluded briefly, as he accompanied the man out into the hall to shake hands farewell with him at the elevator door. "I'll let you know as soon as anything develops." The remainder of the forenoon, and for some time during the early afternoon, Craig plunged into one of his periods of intense work and abstraction at the laboratory. lab-oratory. , It was. indeed, a most unusual and delicate deli-cate test which he was making. For one thing, I noticed that he had. in a sterilizer, steriliz-er, some peculiar granular tissue that had been sent to him from a hospital. This tissue he was very careful to cleanse of blood and then by repeated boilings prepare pre-pare for whatever" use he had in mind. Among the many peculiar pieces of apparatus ap-paratus which he had, I recall one that consisted of a glass cylinder ' with a siphon si-phon tube running into it half way up the outside. ' Inside was another, smaller cylinder. All about him as he proceeded were glass containers, capillary pipettes, test tubes, Bunsen burners and dirflyzers of porous parchment paper whose wrappers described them as "permeable for peptones, pep-tones, but not for albumins." Carefully set aside was the blood which he had drawn from Seabury's veins, allowed al-lowed to stand till the serum separated out from the clot. Next he pipetted it into a. centrifuge tube and centrifuged it at high speed, some sixteen thousand revolutions, rev-olutions, until the serum was perfectly clear, with no trace of a reddish tint, nor even cloudy. After that he drew off the serum ino a little tube, covered it with a layer of a substance called toluol from another sterile pipette, and finally placed it in an incubator at a temperature of about 9S. It was well along toward 4 o'clock when he paused as If some mental alarm clock had awakened him to another part of the plan of action he had laid out. "Walter," he remarked, hastily doffing his stained old laboratory coat, "I think we'd better drop around to the Vanderveer." Vander-veer." It was not many seconds before we were on our way. Through the lobby of the famous new hostelry we slowly lounged along, then down a passage into the tea room, where, in the center of a circle of quaint little wicker chairs and tables, was a glossy dancing floor.' Kennedy selected a table not In the circle, cir-cle, but around an "IV inconspicuously located so that we could watch the dancing danc-ing without ourselves being watched. At one end of the room an excellent or-chestra or-chestra was playing. I gazed about, fas- cinated. At the dancing: tea. was represented, repre-sented, apparently, much wealth. About it all was the glamor of the risque. One felt a sort of compromising familiarity in this breaking down of old social restraints through the insidious influence in-fluence of the tea room, with Its accompaniments accom-paniments of music and dancing. "Well, there is what psychologists might call a real dance neurosis," remarked re-marked Craig after we had for some time settled ourselves and watched the brilliant bril-liant scene. "in fact, few persons can withstand the physical effect of the peculiar pecu-liar rhythm, the close contact, and the sinuous movements." The music had started again and one after another couples seemed to float past in unhesitating hesitation dowager and debutante, dandy and doddering octogenarian. octoge-narian. "Why," he exclaimed, looking out at the whirling keleidoscope, "here in the most advanced epoch, people of culture and Intelligence frankly say they are 'wild' for something primitive." "Still," I objected, "dancing even in the wild, stimulating, emotional manner you see here need not be merely an incitement incite-ment to love, need it? May it not be a normal gratification of the love Instinct-eroticism Instinct-eroticism translated into rhythm? Perhaps Per-haps it may represent sex. but not necessarily neces-sarily badly." Kennedy nodded. "Undoubtedly the effect ef-fect of the dances is in direct ratio to the sexual temperament of, the dancer," he admitted. He paused and again watched the whirl. "Does Mrs. Seabury herself understand it?" he mused, only half speaking to me. "I'm sure that this Sherburne is clever enough to do so, at any rate." "To my mind," Kennedy went on, "several "sev-eral things seem significant. Many people peo-ple have noticed that after marriage women generally lose much of their ardor for d?ncing. Mrs. Seabury seems not to have lost it." "Then," I inquired quickly, "you imply that she is not really as much in love with her husband as she would have us think or, perhaps, herself believes?" "Xot quite that," he replied doubtfully. "But I am wondering whether there Is such a factor that must be considered." Before I could answer Kennedy touched my arm. Instinctively I followed the direction di-rection of his eye and saw Mrs. Seabury step out on the floor across from us. Without a word from Craig. I realized that the man with her must be Sherburne, Sher-burne, our "tango thief." As they passed near us, Mrs.. Seabury caught Kennedy's eye in momentary recognition. rec-ognition. Her face, flushed with the dance, colored perhaps a shade deeper, but not noticeably to her partner, who was devoting himself wholly and skillfully skill-fully to leading her in a manner that one could see called forth frequent comment from others, less favored. As they sat down after this dance and the encore. Craig and I talked together, waiting for developments, and they came quickly enough. I happened to glance across the floor and over the heads of those seated at the tables at a door opposite op-posite us. It was my turn hastily to seize Kennedy's elbow. There in a further doorway of the tea room stood Judson Seabury himself! Without a word. Craig rose and quickly crossed the dancing floor, stopping before Mrs. Seabury's table. Instead of waiting to be introduced, he sat down deliberately, deliber-ately, as though he had been ther all the time and had just gone out of the room and come back. He did it all so quickly that he was able in a perfectly-natural perfectly-natural way to turn and see that Seabury Sea-bury himself had been watching and was now advancing slowly, picking his way among the crowded tables. From around my corner I saw Craig whisper a word or two to Mrs. Seabury, then rise and meet Seabury less than half way from the door by which he had been standing. The tension of the situation was too much for Mrs. Seabury. Confounded and bewildered, she fled precipitately, passing pass-ing within a few feet of my table. Her face was ' positively ghastly. As for Sherburne, he merely sat a moment mo-ment and surveyed the irate husband with calm and studied insolence at a safe distance. Then he, too, rose and turned deliberately on his heel. Curious to know how Craig would meet the dilemma, I watched eagerly and was surprised to see Seabury. after a mo- ment's whispered talk, turn and leave t lie tea room by the same door through which he hud entered. "U'nat did you do?" I asked, as Craig rejoined me a few moments later. "What did you say? My hat's off to you," I added in admiration. "Told him 1 hnd trailed her here with one of my operatives, but was convinced there was nothing wrong, afier all," he re-tu re-tu rued. "You mean," I asked, as the result of Craig's quick thinking dawned on me, "that you told him Sherburne was your operative?' Kennedy nodded. "I want to see him, now. If I can," he said simply. We paid our cheek and Kennedy and I sauntered In the direetion Sherburne had taken, finding him ultimately In the safe, alone. Without further introduction, Kennedy Ken-nedy approached him. "So you are a detective." sneered Sherburne superciliously, elevating his eyebrows .lust the fraction of an Inch. "Not exactly," paried Kennedy, seating seat-ing himself beside Sherburne. "Mr. Sherburne, Sher-burne, may I aak just what it is on which you base your claim on Mrs. Seabury? Sea-bury? Is it merely meeting her here? If that is so you must know that It amounts to nothing now." "Nothing?" coolly retorted Sherburne. "Perhaps not in itself. But suppose I had " He said the word slowly, as he fumbled in Ills fob 'pocket then cut them short as he found what he was looking for. Safely, in the palm of his hand he displayed dis-played a latch-key, momentarily, then with a taunting smile ' dropped it back into the fob pocket. "Perhaps she gave It to me perhaps I was a welcome visitor In her apartment," he insinuated. "How would she relish having that told to Mr. Seabury backed up hv the possession of the key?" "Thank you," was all that Kennedy said, as he rose. "I wanted to know how far you could go. Perhaps we can meet you halfway." In silence Kennedy left the hotel and jumped Into a cab, directing the driver to the laboratory, where he had asked Mrs. Seabury to watt for him. We found her there, still much agitated. Hastily Craig explained to her how he had saved the situation, but her mind was too occupied over something else to pav much attention. "I I can't blame you. Professor Kennedy," Ken-nedy," she cried, choking down a sob in her voice, "but I have just discovered he has told me that it is even worse than I had anticipated." We were both following her closely, the incident of the latchkey still fresh in mind. "Some time ago," she hurried on, "I missed my latchkey. I thought nothing of it at the time thought perhaps I had mislaid it. But today be told me just after the danc, even while I was making him think I would pay him the money because because I liked him he told me he had it. The brute! He must have picked my handbag!" Craig pulled out his watch hastily. 'Tt is about 6, Mrs. Seabury," he reassured. "Can you be here at, say, 8?" "I will be here," she murmured pllant-ly, pllant-ly, realizing her own helplessness. She had scarcely closed the door when Craig seized the telephone and hurriedly tried to locate Seabury himself. "Apparently no trace of him yet," he fumed, as he hung of the receiver. "The first problem Is how to get that key. Will you attend to that end of the affair for me, Walter. I have just a little more work here at the laboratory before I am ready.'. I don't care how you do it, but I want you to convey to Sherburne the welcome news that Mrs. Seabury Is prepared pre-pared to give in, in any way he may see fit. If he will call her up here at 8 o'clock." Kennedy had already plunged back among his beakers and test tubes, and with these slender instructions I sallied forth in my quest of Sherburne. I had little difficulty m locating him and delivering de-livering my message, which he received with a satisfaction that invited assault and battery and mayhem. However. I managed to restrain myself and rejoin Craig in the laboratory, shortly after 7 o'clock. I had scarcely had time to assure Kennedy Ken-nedy of the success of my mission, when we were surprised to see the door open and Seabury himself appear. His face was actually haggard. Wheth- er or not he had believed the hastily concerted story of Kennedy at the Ven-derveer, Ven-derveer, his mind had not ceased to work on the other fears that had prompted his coming to us in the first place. "I've been trying to locate you all over," greeted Craig. Seabury heaved a sigh and passed his hand, with its familiar motion, over his forehead. "1 thought perhaps you misht be able to find out something from this stuff," he answered, unwrapping a package pack-age which he was carrying. "Some samples sam-ples of the food I've been getting. If you don't rind anything in this, I've others oth-ers 1 want tested." As I looked at the man's drawn face, I wondered whether in fact there might be something In his fears. On the surface, the tiling did indeed seem to place Agatha Seabury in a bad light. At the sight of the key in Sherburne's possession I had grasped at the straw that he might have conceived some diabolical plan to get rid of Seabury for purposes of his own. But then, I reasoned, would he have been so free in showing the key if he had realized that: it might cu-st suspicion on himself? I was forced to ask myself again whether she might, in her hysterical hysteri-cal fear of exposure by the adroit blackmailer, black-mailer, have really attempted to poison her husband. It was a desperate situation. But Kennedy Ken-nedy was apparently ready to meet It, though he seemed to take no great Interest Inter-est in the food samples Seabury had just brought. Instead, he seemed to rely wholly on the tests he had already begun with the peculiar pe-culiar tissue I had seen him boiling and the blood serum derived from Seabury himself. Without a word be took three tubes from the incubator, in which I had seen him place them soio time before, and, as they stood in a rack, indicated them lightly with his finger. 'T think I can clear part of this mystery mys-tery up immediately," he began. "Here I have a tested dialyzer in which has been placed a half cubic centimeter of pure, clear serum. Here is another dialyzer dialy-zer with the same amount of serum, but no tissue, such as Mr. Jamison has seen me place in thfs first one. Here is still another with the tissue in distilled water, hut no blood serum. I have placed all the dialyzers in tubes of distilled water and all are covered with a substance known as toluol and corked to keep them from contamination." Carefully Kennedy took from each tube a few centimeters of the dialyzate and into each he poured a little liquid from a tiny vial which I noticed was labeled "Xinhydrin." "This," he explained as he set down the vial, "is a substance which gives a colorless color-less solution with water, but when mixed with albumins, peptones, or aminoacids becomes violet on boiling. Tube number three must remain colorless. Number two may be violet. Number one may approximate approx-imate number two or be more deeply colored. col-ored. If one and two are about the same I call my test negative. But if one is more, deeply colored than two, then it is , positive. The other tube Is the control." Impatiently we waited a9 the three tubes simmered over the heat. What would they show? Seabury's eyes were glued on them, his hand trembling in tle presence of some unknown danger. Slowly the liquid in the second tube turned violet. But more rapidly and more deepiv appeared the violet in number num-ber one. The test was positive. "What is it?" gasped Seabury, hoarsely, leaning over close. "This." exclaimed Kennedy, "is the famous fa-mous Abderhalden test serum-diagnosis discovered by Professor Emlle Abderhalden Abder-halden of Halle.- It rests on the fact that when a foreign substance comes into the blood, the blood reacts, with the formation of a protective ferment produced as a result re-sult of physiologic and pathologic conditions. condi-tions. "For instance," he went on, "a certain albumin always produces a certain ferment, fer-ment, presence in the blood stream of blood-foreign substances calls forth a ferment fer-ment that will digest them and split them into molecules. The forces of nature form and iobilize directly in the blood r?rum. "Let me get1 this clearly. Albumin cannot pass through the pores of an animal ani-mal membrane, since the individual 'iole-cules 'iole-cules are too large. If, however, the albumin al-bumin is broken up by a ferment action, then the molecules become small enough to pass through." .Seabury was listening like a man on whom a stunning blow was about to descend. de-scend. "Thus we can tell," proceeded Kennedy, Ken-nedy, "whether there is such a ferment in blood serum as would be produced by a certain condition, for when the ferment is there, blood from the Individual possessing pos-sessing it will digest a similar proteid in a dialyziug thimble kept t body temperature." tem-perature." "Wh-what do you find?" reiterated Seabury. "I have marie tests for about everything every-thing 1 can suggest ," returned Kennedy, taking the tubes and pouring the liquid from number two into number one until they wre equalized in color, thus testing test-ing them, while we watched every action ulosely. "You see," he digressed, "to get the two the same shade I have to dilute the first by the second. Xow. the dialyzers are n-t pormeaole to albumin. Therefore There-fore trie violet color indicates that the Mood serum in this case contains ferments fer-ments which the beviy is inakme to split up some foreign substance in t he blood, such .is 1 suspected and obtained from the hospital. Ti:e test :s pusii ive. Mr. Seabury. how lomr have you tell as you say that ou do?" "Several weeks. t lie man returned weakly. "That is fortunate," cried Kennedy, "fortunate that it has not been several months." iie paused, then added the startling statement : "Mr. Seabury 1 can find no evidence here or" poison. As a matter of fact, the wonderful Abderhalden test shows me that you have one of the most common forms of internal disease that occur for t he most part in persons at or aft-r middle life, about the ape of 50. more common in men than in womena wom-ena disease which, taken in time, as it has been revealed hy this wonderful test, may he cured and you may be saved an incipient cancer of the stomach." Kennedy paused a moment and listened. lis-tened. I fancied 1 heard someone in the hall. But ho went on : "The person whom you suspect of poisoning you " - There came a suppressed scream from the door, as it was mm open and Agatha Seabury stood there, staring with fixed, set eyes at Kennedy, then at her husband. hus-band. Mechanically. I looked at my watch. It was precisely S. Keilnedy bad evidently prolonged the test for a purpose. pur-pose. "The person whom you suspected," he repeated firmly, 'is innocent !" A moment A cat ha stood there, then as the thins- dawned on her she uttered one cry. "Judson !" Seabury himself seemed dazed. "And I gave " he ejaculated, then stopped. , Kennedy raised his hand. "Just a moment, mo-ment, please,-' he interrupted, as he placed Mrs. Seabury in a chair, then glanced hastily at his watch. She saw the motion and seemed suddenly sud-denly to realize that it was nearinsr the time for Sherburne to call tin. She had just been shocked to know that she was charged unjustly. But had she been cleared from one peril only to fall a victim vic-tim to a n o t h e r t h e one she al re ad y feared ? AYas Sherburne to escape, after all. and ruin her? The telephone tinkled insistently. Kennedy Ken-nedy seized the receiver. "Who is It?" we heard him ask. "Mr. Sherburne oh yes." Quickly Craig had jammed the receiver down on a little metal ba?e which we had not noticed near the instrument. Three prongs reaching upward from the base engaged the receiver tightly. fitting closely about it. Then he took up a watch-case receiver to listen through, in place of the regular receiver. "Sherburne, you say," he repeated. "H. Morgan Sherburne?' We waited impatiently as he reiterated the name. Why was he so careful about it? The moments were speeding fast and Mrs. Seabury found the suspense terrific. "Must pay we'll never get anything on you?" Cra ig repeated after a few moments' mo-ments' further parley. "Very well. I am commissioned to meet you there in ten minutes and settle the thing up on those terms," he concluded as he clapped tho N regular receiver back on its book with a hasty good-bv and faced us triumphantly. triumphant-ly. "The deuce I won't get anything. I've got it!" he exclaimed. Judson Seabury was too stunned by tho revelation that he had a cancer to follow clearly the mazo of events. "That." cried Kennedy, rising quickly, "is what la known as tho tel escribe a new specially prepared phonograph cylinder cylin-der which reproduces perfectly all that Js said both ways over a telephone wive. Come!" oTen minutes later, in a cab that had. been waiting at the door, we pulled up at the Vanderveer. Without a word, leaving Judson Seabury and his wife in the waiting cab, Craig sprang out, followed by nie, as be signaled. sig-naled. There was Sherburne, brazen and insolent, inso-lent, in the cafe as we entered, from a rear door, and came upon him before he knew it, our friend, Dunn, whom wo had met in the lobby, hovering concealed outside, ready to come to our assistance. In a moment Kennedy was at Sherburne's Sher-burne's elbow, pinching it in the manner familiar to international crooks. "Will you tell me what your precise, business is in this hotel?" shot out Craig before Slier burne could recover from bis surprise. Sherburne flushed and flared then became, be-came, pale with rage. "None of your dn mned insolence!" he ground out. then paused, cutting the next remark short or he gritted. "What do you mean? Shall I send a wax impression of tli at key " Kennedy had quickly flashed the cylinder cylin-der of the teleseribe before his eyes nnd instinctively Sherburne seemed tn realize that with all his care In using typewriters and telephones some kind of record of bis extortion had been obtained. For a moment he crumpled up. Then Kennedy seized him bv the ejbow. dragging drag-ging him toward a side dour opposite that at which our cab wus standing. "I mean." he muttered, -"that I have; the goods on yon at last and you'll gH the limit for blackmail through this littlo wax cylinder If you so much as show your face in New York n train. 1 don't care, where you go. hut It must be by the first train. Understand?" A ninment later we returned to the cab. where it hurl pnllell up in t h- shadow, away from the carriage entrance. "You. you'll forgive me for my unjust un-just suspicions Airatha ?" we heard a voice from the depths of the cab saw Kennedy pulled mo back in time not to inTerrupl a inufMed "es." Craig coughed. As he reached a. hand in t h ro u gh th ft cab door to hid good nittht to the reunited couple, I Kiw Mrs. seabury start, then turn and drop Into her handbag the key which Kennedy had extracted from Sherburne's Sher-burne's pocket in the meleo and now convoyed con-voyed back to her In the handshake. |
