IN the building: of a detective romance, the author follows a fixed set of ram-rod rules. Always the reader may expect to have his suspicions directed with machine-like regularity to half a dozen innocent persons before the real criminal is pictured in the closing chapter. We have come to expect this routine and we accept it with a more or less cynical shrug. Does the detective of real life duplicate the mistaken and final victory of the detective of romance?

       In answer there rises before me the scene of the Johnson Tragedy a few years rearward which riveted the attention of a certain thriving Western city that I will call Camden. In the early morning shadows a dead man was found, sprawled in the gray darkness of a prominent business crossing.

       A trickling stream of blood ran downward from an ugly bullet wound in the chest. Cards in the victim's pocket identified him as Cyrus Johnson, a well-known restaurant proprietor, and bachelor club man.

       There had been no effort to conceal the body. Johnson might have been shot three or six hours before his rigid form was found. The corner of the tragedy after ten o'clock of a week day evening was as quiet as a village cemetery and it was not difficult to understand that the dead man had fallen at the edge of the pavement and that the murderer had continued his way without even taking the trouble to push the body farther into the shadows.

       For one, two, three, perhaps half a dozen hours, the corpse had remained undisturbed, unnoticed, while the red, thread-like stream of blood had crept slowly across the walk to the gutter.

       A night worker, trudging homeward with a waltz tune between his puckered lips, first saw the tragedy, and his dinner pail clattered to the walk as he dashed back to the nearest all-night telephone.

       This was the summary of the case as the chief gave it to me in his crisp, abrupt fashion, eight hours later. He was puzzled, and he took no pains to conceal the fact. The quick, jerky circles of his cigar smoke as he swung about in his swivel chair and faced me, testified to his emotion.

       "Clues?" he laughed shortly at the query. "I've never been so thoroughly and completely stumped in my life!"

       "Robbery?" I suggested musingly.

       "It may be," the chief answered finally in the tone of the man who is not sure of himself. "The old, commonplace motive that we always fall back on, eh, when we're puzzled and don't want to show it!"

       ""Was Johnson in the habit of carrying a money belt?"

       "I don't know. His pocketbook was on his person, but of course a really clever thief might have taken a snug roll of bills and then replaced it to cover up his tracks."

       "How about jewelry?"

       "He might have been loaded with it. We found a ring or, so and his watch, but he could have had a dozen diamonds, of course."

       When the motive of robbery becomes hazy, we fall back by process of elimination to that of jealousy. Those men who are not shot for gold are generally shot for revenge. It was with this idea that I put the question:

       "How about the family?"

       "None!"

       "Not married at all?"

       "If there's a wife, the world doesn't know it."

       "Too early to disclose any other love entanglements, I presume?"

       The officer nodded. "I think we can safely put the women out of the case. Johnson met his assailant face to face. He may have offered resistance and his murderer fearing to parley, probably whipped out his gun, fired point-blank and fled. The average woman, under such conditions, would have been plunged into hysterics and would have told what she had done hours ago. No, I think we must look for a man and I want you to help us!"

       I arose slowly to my feet.

       "Where will be the point of beginning?"

       "The restaurant. If Johnson operated it, himself, he spent from eight to ten hours a day there. We will see what those eight or ten hours left behind."

       As I anticipated, Cyrus Johnson's establishment stood out among the better class of restaurants, not too fashionable nor expensive, but such a place where the average business man would go for a substantial, well served meal. The news of his death had already spread consternation among the employes, and I saw the conventional ribbons of crepe fluttering from the locked door. The policeman on guard admitted me with a nod, and a moment later I stood in the great, empty room, which gave a curiously sombre effect with its rows of deserted tables and chairs, ready for the guests, that did not come.

       The cashier — an alert, business-like young fellow, stepped briskly from behind his screen. He scrutinized me with a tense, abrupt stare as I introduced myself but the next instant, his manner had melted into a smiling welcome. If he was ill at ease, he veiled the fact with an assurance which excited my admiration.

       "How long have I been here?" he repeated. "Nearly six years this winter."

       "Of course, Mr. Scott, you were more or less acquainted with your employer's business methods?"

       "To a certain extent — yes," was the cautious reply. "Mr. Johnson, however, was a man who kept his affairs to himself — personal as well as financial."

       "The restaurant, I presume was in a flourishing condition?"

       "Among the best in time. In fact, Mr. Johnson could have sold several times lately to excellent advantage, and to tell the truth I often wondered why he did not close with one of the offers. I imagined it must have been a strong attraction that kept him in Camden!"

       I pricked up my ears, as I continued: "You know that next to money, the strongest attraction that will tempt a man is a — woman!"

       I watched the cashier narrowly, but he only smiled back politely and gazed out over the vegetables and meats in the display window.

       "Mr. Johnson was a reserved man, as I have said. He was single, and I have often met him at the theater, enjoying the play alone. Also, he was fond of billiards — the typical life of the middle-aged bachelor."

       "Thank you," I said gratefully, as he opened the door and I stepped into the street. But somehow, his words didn't ring true. I couldn't place my finger on the flaw but I felt that beneath the careless conversation, the cashier had been standing on the brink of a volcano, fearful that every word and gesture would reveal — what? Abruptly I turned back and knocked again on the door.

       Scott opened it, with the same quick glance of suspicion again in his eyes.

       "Was Mr. Johnson fond of diamonds?" I asked without preamble.

       "Eh?" muttered the cashier. "Fond of diamonds? That's a funny question."

       "Do you think so?" I rejoined crisply.

       Scott flung the door wide, but I did not step in. The man stood on the threshold hesitating. "If you knew Mr. Johnson, you would realize how difficult it is to reconcile his. character with that of a diamond collector. He was much too —–" the cashier paused jerkily &$151– "hard headed!"

       I pondered his statement as I made my way toward the coroner's office where the body of Cyrus Johnson reposed. The smooth faced, smooth voiced young man puzzled me more than I cared to confess. I was still debating the point when the attendant pushed aside the white sheet and I stared down into the bloodless face of the man, who had been done to death the night before.

       When I left, I was convinced of three salient facts — the assassin had fired point-blank at his victim, regardless of how or where his shot struck, there had been no struggle, and Johnson had died almost instantly. The powder marks on the clothes of course, demonstrated that the murderer had been almost within arm's reach, and the wound in the chest suggested vividly that the bullet had been discharged either in a blind, unreasoning anger or with a frenzied desire to bring the victim to earth regardless of the method.

       I sought Tomlinson, a "plain clothes man," who had been lounging about the restaurant, with his eyes and ears — accounted among the shrewdest on the force — opened to their widest.

       "Do you remember the man I was chatting with this morning, the cashier?" I queried.

       "Sure. I had quite a talk with him myself after you left. He's been busy at the desk all day, but the place hasn't been opened, of course."

       "That man. has something on his mind, Tomlinson."

      

       The detective smoked a moment in silence. "Exactly the same thought I have developed," he replied grimly. "Is it a question of dollars and cents or —"

       "Is it not?" I finished. "I am inclined to say 'no.' Ah, there's our man. now! He's closing up for the night."

       Tomlinson nodded briefly to me and strolled carelessly down the street in the same direction that Scott was taking. The cashier was walking with quick, nervous steps without a glance backward. Two blocks below, he turned into a side street with the detective following on the opposite walk, and I turned away. Two hours later Tomlinson called to me in front of police headquarters.

       "I followed our man home," he began in a low tone as I joined him. "He's a bachelor, with a room down on Walnut Street. He was almost there when he dropped into a cafe, La Salle's place. I got the table behind him. He hadn't been seated long enough to give his order when a friend of his came in and took the chair across from him.

       "The other had been reading the papers and plunged into the subject of the murder. Scott tried to stop him but the man was determined to get his version of the affair. The cashier was giving him much the same story that he gave us when the other stopped him with a grin.

       'I say, Scott,' he said, leaning over the table, 'where does the girl come in?'

       "I thought for a minute the cashier was going to strike the man. 'Girl!' he snapped. 'Oh she's been gone three months.'

       "And then the conversation turned and a quarter of an hour later the cashier left for his room."

       The detective paused. "Well, what do you make of it?" he asked.

       "Nothing yet," I answered.

       A sharp-teethed surprise awaited me at police headquarters. The law had gathered its first prisoner.

       Jim Wilson possessed a personality as quiet and unobstrusive as his name. A first glance would utterly discredit the suggestion that in this retiring, backward little man there was one of the most dangerous yeggmen of the Central West. Back of those veiled eyes and submissive bearing, however, were an ingenuity that laughed at odds and an energy and nimbleness that had waylaid and fleeced a victim in the heart of the city — and broad day-light.

       "Have you got the 'goods on him?'" I queried as the chief beckoned me aside.

       "Yes and no. We know that Wilson was in the neighborhood of the tragedy between 10 and 12 o'clock, and he was nervous." The chief paused significantly. "Have you ever known Wilson to be nervous?"

       "'Foxy Jim,' nervous!" I smiled at the idea.

       The chief shrugged his shoulders. "We have it on the word of two witnesses. Also —– this."

       With the last words, the threw onto the table two rings — one with a glistening diamond in its setting.

       "Wilson pawned them this morning."

       "Are they Johnson's?"

       "I don't know. Nobody knows. You've struck the missing link. If we can establish —–"

       I interrupted him abruptly. "But what about the rings and the watch that were left on the dead man?"

       "Yes, what about them?" the chief repeated gloomily.

       "Also, why should Wilson or any other man commit murder for two rings?"

       "For the same reason that a man steals a loaf of bread."

       "Not he. Besides it is much easier and cheaper to rob a baker than it is to shoot a man." I could not convince myself that Cyrus Johnson had met his death at the hands of a thug. But what had I to support my belief? And the next day was destined to make my fancy still more difficult to entertain.

       Given a clue to digest, the chief was as tenacious and determined as a bull dog. Two rings, which might or might not belong to the dead man had been thrown into his possession by a combination of circumstances. The immediate question was to determine their ownership without mistake — and without delay. The cashier of the Johnson restaurant, who still presided over the destinies of the deserted tables was summoned, in a manner which brought him to the spot without loitering, and with the curious gleam of suspicion again glittering in his eyes.

       The chief pushed the rings toward him silently. Scott extended a careless hand toward them, gazing questioningly at the official as he did so.

       "Where did you find them?"

       "Pawn shop!" was the curt answer. "And we've got the man who was showing them!"

       I could have sworn that at the words, the cashier gave a nervous start. His sleeve, brushing across the table, knocked over the glass of water at his elbow. Was the movement a design to gain time?

       "Of course the rings belonged to Johnson?" snapped the chief sharply.

       The cashier hesitated the barest fraction of a second, and then nodded his head slowly.

       "Yes, they belonged to Johnson," he repeated quietly.

       I walked to the street in a brown study. Why should a man, even a desperate man, run the risk of the gallows for a pair of rings? I was still pondering the query when I brought up sharply before the Johnson restaurant. The door was open, and two girls were dusting the plates and silver within.

       The younger of the two came forward inquiringly at my entrance.

       She was a light-haired, blue-eyed little thing of that type of features which we see in the Swedish immigrant women before the New World has left its blur. She might have been eighteen, but I was certain she was not a day older.

       At the mention of my errand, her big, blue eyes surveyed me with a bewildered stare.

       "Mr. Johnson? Of course, I knew him — in a business way. I have worked here some time, you know —"

       The other girl had paused in her dusting and was listening at her shoulder.

       "A kind-hearted man. Well — yes. All men are rough, don't you think? Mr. Johnson had a habit of speaking sharply when things didn't go as he thought they ought to, and of course some of us resented this. But on the whole, there have been worse men — much worse." The girl looked into my eyes musingly, as though unable to make up her mind just what I wanted her to tell.

       "What is your name?" I asked suddenly.

       "My name?" For the first time she appeared startled. "My name? Why, Susan Adams. Do you want my address, too?"

       I walked to the cigar stand where the cash register showed the legend, "No Sale," and back to the table where the two waitresses had resumed their work.

       "Do you recall a girl who left here about three months ago?" I queried, with a remembrance of the cashier's words of the evening before.

       Susan Adams faced me with a plate in her hands and a little frown on her face. "No, I do not," she answered slowly while her companion nodded thoughtfully.

       "No one that Mr. Johnson was — er, particularly — attentive to?"

       The girl's smile deepened to a laugh, then was checked suddenly as she laid her plate carefully on the table and flashed me a long, shrewd glance.

       "No, I think, not," she repeated musingly. "We have so many girls here, you know, that it is sometimes hard to keep track of them."

       "Then Mr. Johnson was not exactly cordial toward any of the women on his pay-roll?"

       The waitress flushed. "I think we all tried to keep to our places, if that is what you mean." Just then, I caught a side view of her companion. The other's face was as white as a sheet.

       With the morning newspapers came a second arrest in the case. Duff Perkins, a negro with a "reputation as black as his features, had been taken into custody at a pawn-shop as questionable as its patrons.

       Under the cover of his frayed pockets was a collection of rings and watches, whose description dated back to a series of suburban burglaries two years ago. This was not the least significant feature of his arrest, however. When Perkins was led into the back room, which served as the "sweat box" of headquarters, the negro's gaze fell suddenly on a glass case in the corner where the two rings taken from Jim Wilson still remained.

       "I'm mighty glad you got 'em, pal," he remarked with a wave of his hand.

       "Why?" was the puzzled rejoinder of the official at his side.

       "Because they were stolen from me!" One of the prisoner's peculiarities was the fact that he had learned to drop completely the negro dialect, and even under the impulse of his discovery, he did not drop back to it. "You see, it's this way," he continued, "Wilson knew I had the rings and things, and he was fool enough to think I was carrying them in my clothes. Also, he knew that when my blood is aroused, I am an ugly customer to handle. Now, Jim is quick enough, but in a rough-and-tumble fight, he's down and out every time. He laid for me two hours the other night — and only got those two rings for his trouble. Tough luck, wasn't it?"

       It was now the turn of the police to prick up a curious ear.

       "Where did you get those rings, Perkins?" was the suddenly stern question hurled at the negro. The answer came with the promptness of your professional criminal glorying in a difficult feat.

       "You remember the Hudson burglary a year back? Well, I pulled that off, gentlemen. I got those rings — and some others!"

       If the prisoner's answer was true, then both of the men were relieved from the shadow of suspicion in the Johnson murder and our friend, the cashier, was left with an embarrassing question to answer.

       When I reached headquarters, the testimony of Duff Perkins had been substantiated beyond a doubt and Scott had been given a curt quarter of an hour with the chief. He was just emerging from the interview when I met him. The man smiled a perfunctory "Good morning," but it didn't need a professional to see that he was worried — badly worried.

       "We've reached the stone wall again," the chief announced cheerfully as I entered.

       "So I observe. Are you prepared to admit that robbery is not the clue for us to follow?"

       "If it isn't a thug," the chief began philosophically, "it's a woman. Have you caught sight of her shadow yet?"

       I shook my head mechanically. "I haven't found the woman nor a hint of her," I answered thoughtfully, "but I think I see a trail that is worth following. Perhaps by noon, I can go into details."

       At the walk, I paused uncertainly. I had a doubled destination. The first was the Johnson restaurant, and it brought me disappointment. The second was a small cottage in the suburbs. The person who answered my knock was a smiling young woman, who beckoned me inside with obvious astonishment. It was Susan Adams.

       "Miss Adams," I began crisply. "I want the name of the woman who killed Mr. Johnson!"

       The girl bounded from her seat.

       "Surely a woman didn't do it!" she cried, while her face whitened so suddenly that I feared she was about to faint.

       "Why not?" I responded. "A pressure of a fraction of an inch on the trigger, and the thing is done. Now, Miss Adams, I want you to help me find her."

       "Me help you? What can I do?"

       "Tell me, for instance, the waitress who left the restaurant about eleven or twelve weeks ago, the girl who was unusually friendly with Mr. Johnson?"

       Susan Adams held up her hand with a gesture of earnestness. "I assure you that I know nothing about such a girl. But you are mistaken about one point."

       "What is that?"

       "Mr. Johnson was not on friendly terms with any of the girls. Indeed I doubt if he knew the names of half of them."

       I arose from the chair with the contradictory words of the cashier ringing in my ears.

       "You don't remember any woman who was particularly unfriendly toward the proprietor?" I queried abruptly.

       "I am afraid I'll have to say 'no' again."

       I shook my head with a rueful smile. "I had the idea that you knew something you didn't like to talk about, but when you knew how much it meant to me, you would tell me all about it." I held out my hand as I paused.

       The girl clasped it earnestly. "I didn't know I had given you that impression. Believe me, if I could assist you, I would gladly go out of my way to do so."

       I gazed for an instant into the blue eyes, raised frankly to mine, with just a suspicion of moisture in their depths. When I turned toward the corner of the block, I was more frankly bewildered than I had been at any point in the windings of the case.

       A woman, in a blue sun-bonnet and blue gingham dress, was pruning a bush of pink roses in the yard next door. As I passed she raised a face with a smile so friendly that I paused instinctively.

       The woman came toward the gate with an air of surprise, which deepened as she heard my question:

       "How long have you known the Adams family?" I queried carelessly.

       The neighbor laid her scissors on the gate-post. "Oh, four or five years," she answered cautiously. "And I've found them as nice a family as lives in this end of Camden!"

       I nodded, "I am somewhat acquainted with Miss Susan, myself."

       "A hard working girl," was the ready response, "and as quiet, good-natured a young woman as I have ever met. You could have knocked me down with a straw when I saw her practising with a revolver last week!"

       "Practising with a revolver!" I gasped.

       "Exactly, just like any man." And the woman in the blue sun-bonnet gazed at me with a regretful shake of her head. "And she kept it up, too. Had a target in the back yard and blazed away at it every evening when she came home from work. I wondered that Mrs. Adams would have allowed it. Now if it had been my daughter &3151;"

       But I didn't wait for her to complete the sentence. I was hurrying back toward the Adams home, without a word of apology or thanks.

       Susan again opened the door. As I faced her inquiring smile, the improbability of my sudden theory struck me like a slap in the face. This blue-eyed, innocent girl — a murderess!

       "By the way," I said casually, "would you mind riding down to police headquarters with me?"

       For an instant, the girl hesitated even while her smile still lingered, as though it had been suddenly frozen. But it was only for an instant.

       "Certainly," she responded, with the trace of a natural surprise in her tone. "Will you wait until I get my hat?"

       She was back the next moment, chattering as eagerly as a college girl out for a pleasant outing. Even when our car neared its destination, her bubbling spirits still remained — and every block my suddenly conceived theory sank lower and lower.

       As it happened, the chief was not so surprised at the identity of my companion as I had expected! In the span of the forenoon, a new development had crowded sharply to the fore, but he did not pause to explain to me, as we accompanied him into his office.

       Never will I forget the wild, hunted look that sprang to the eyes of Susan Adams when she was first charged directly with the crime. Her careless, girlish smile crumbled like a burnt paper. Her body slid down into the big chair, a broken, huddled heap and we both fancied, that she had fainted.

       But a moment later she had rallied, and her voice was fairly steady as she repeated mechanically, "No, I have nothing to say. Please don't ask me any more questions!"

       As she was led from the room, the chief turned to me briskly, and in a quartet of sentences summarized the events of the morning.

       "The old story of a bad man and a girl who valued her honor above her pay envelope. We had the whole thing from one of the waitresses this morning. Johnson had been tormenting Miss Adams for a matter of weeks and I guess she preferred to take his torments rather than lose her job As usual, the affair went from bad to worse."

       The chief had hardly finished the last word when a hurried message from the girl in the cell reached me. I found her gazing dry-eyed out into the long, gray corridor. Feverishly she seized my arm and clung to me like a drowning man to a straw.

       "The revolver is in my trunk," she whispered hoarsely, "I put it there after — I killed him!" I took her slender hand and for the first time noted how slender and white it was.

       For a tense second she was silent and then she burst out wildly "He followed me and I told him that the next time it would be his death — or mine. I got the revolver and carried it in my pocket, waiting. I knew I would do it, that I would have to do it!" And then the tears came, and did what words could not.

       "Why did you try to deceive us?" I queried as I stood in the corridor.

       "Don't you know that I have a father and a mother and a brother?" was the surprised reply, "and besides if you didn't find out, why should I tell you?"

       "Was Scott, the cashier, a friend of yours?"

       The girl shook her head. "He was too much of a friend of Johnson's. He was trying to shield him not me. That was why he told the story about the other girl who left and lied about the rings."

       The chief met me with the curious question, "What do you think of her?"

       "If Susan Adams was given a chance on the stage," I replied heartily, "there would be a new star above the theatrical horizon."

       Three months later the girl was acquitted on the ground of self-defense. But she did not go to the stage. In one of the suburbs, a big hearted lover and a little flat were awaiting her, and she fled to the shelter of his name and hearth.

[THE END.]

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