SELDOM have I been more contented with my lot than I was on this morning in the early part of 1902. It was the end of my second year as Pacific Coast Manager of the great International Life Insurance Company, and, though I was somewhat young for the responsible position, I felt that I had acquitted myself with honor.

      The sun poured in through the big plate-glass window and made a widening golden way across the moss-green carpet; it brought with it not only warmth, but happiness and the promise of prosperous days to come. I like to look back upon the early part of that day; there will never be another like it.

      On either side the path of sunshine were the chairs of Dr. Stone and myself. Dr. Stone's fine, muscular form was a thing upon which the eye might well dwell with satisfaction, particularly my eye, for I was painfully conscious of the fact that I was an undersized, nervous, anæmic little man. It was not Dr. Stone's form alone that one admired; you almost forgot that when the gaze rested upon his face — it was so strong, kind, and human. His honest blue eyes looked at you in such a childlike, trusting way, that you could but wonder whether he could successfully battle with the guile of the world. The firm chin said that he could; the lurking smile that played hide and seek under his blond mustache made you wonder whether or not he would.

      Long as I have known the Doctor, dear a friend as he is of mine, I have never quite satisfied myself that I really understand him to the full depths of his nature. Every time I meet him I am certain of learning something new, of getting a different view of life.

      "Wilkinson," said he, abruptly breaking a not unpleasant silence, "has it ever occurred to you that you may be the innocent tool of vice, the unsuspecting accessory of murder?"

      For a moment I could not answer, the question took me so by surprise.

      "N—no," I stammered, glancing sharply at him. "Why? What makes you ask such a question?"

      "Because I believe that you are," he drawled in his quiet way. "I'll prove it if you wish."

      I took another look at his face, wondering whether he was laughing at me; his expression was earnest.

      "You wonder that I should say such a thing; you are startled. Let me make a brief statement, then you will perhaps understand better. Of late years I have devoted a great deal of time to an analysis of the criminal mind, and as a result I have learned some very surprising things. I have come to the conclusion that there is no occupation, industry, or enterprise in which there is not crime."

      "But that's no reason why you should accuse me of being a criminal," I interrupted warmly.

      "I have come to the further conclusion," he went on, heedless of my interruption, "that in your business there is a greater proportion of crime than in any other, and that murder is by no means infrequent." Crossing one leg over the other, he smiled at me in a satisfied, dispassionate sort of way, as though he had just announced that it would be warm on the morrow, or some other equally unimportant thing. He seemed already to have forgotten the personal application of his announcement.

      I stared at him blankly for several minutes. Finally I answered:

      "Of course no sensible man denies that there is crime in the world, Doctor. But you will certainly make an exception in favor of our company."

      "No. You don't understand. I mean your company. I mean you, Toby. I mean that you are not shrewd enough, not suspicious enough to outwit criminals," he said, a tone of insistence in his voice.

      "Crime in our company!" I replied commiseratingly. "Never! Why, don't you know that the International is the largest life insurance organization in the world, that it carries over a billion dollars worth of insurance, and that its assets are hundreds of millions of dollars?"

      "Exactly," he answered, as though inviting me to continue.

      "Do you appreciate the fact that its management, down to the smallest detail, is more exacting in its attention to details than any Government; and that it has an unequaled system of checks and counter-checks? And, lastly, do you not know that it has the finest possible secret service department?"

      "In spite of all these things; in fact, I might say because of them, murder for life insurance is of daily occurrence. Your company, along with the lesser ones, is paying the price of the crime. It's too bad, Toby. You can't stop it. You don't even know that these things are so," he said patiently.

      His manner was so impressive that, for the moment, I was almost convinced. My better judgment saved me. Resolutely shaking off the feeling of oppression that had come upon me, I told him that I could not believe him.

      "Toby," he said — I like to have him call me that — "suppose I should prove you wrong?"

      "I would believe then. I can not before, Doctor."

      "Will you let me inspect your books?"

      I hesitated.

      "I think that I know just how a criminal would proceed to defraud an insurance company. If your books show nothing out of the way — why, then I'm wrong, and your company is invulnerable. If there has been fraud, murder, you wouldn't want to conceal it."

      "But our secret service?" I protested.

      "That for your detectives!" He snapped his fingers. "Professional detectives may never even hope to follow the shrewdest criminals; they are too materialistic; they don't understand."

      "Very well, you shall have the books. I'll cheerfully eat any book that shows crime in this branch of the company," I said.

      "The records for this year will do. If I can't find sufficient there to justify my assertions, it would be useless to go further," he replied confidently.

      If I permitted a satisfied, incredulous smile to show upon my face, it was not that I doubted the sincerity, the acuteness of Dr. Stone, but because I had such confidence in the International. So soon as the books were given to him, I turned to my desk.

      Half an hour later, happening to glance over my shoulder, I found him facing me, and the books closed and neatly piled on one corner of the desk.

      "Well," I said, "I presume you are convinced now?"

      "Yes, Toby, quite convinced. I must thank you for placing such excellent data at my disposal."

      I was about to condole with him upon his disappointment but something in his face arrested the words. I looked at him again.

      "Y—you haven't —?" I faltered, a sudden conviction eating at my heart.

      "Yes, I have, my friend. My convictions were well founded."

      "It can't be! It can't be!" I shouted. Starting up, I walked nervously back and forth a few times, then sank limply into my chair. "Go on," I gasped hoarsely. "Tell me the very worst."

      "If you're going to take it so hard as that, Toby, let's dismiss the whole thing," he said kindly.

      "No, I'm all right now, Doctor. Tell me what you found," I answered, trying to pull myself together.

      "This company has paid the price of murder several times," he began. "Of course I didn't expect to find in your records a detailed account as to how these crimes were committed. But within the past year you have paid nearly half a million dollars upon two fraudulent claims. There may be others; I followed up only one line of reasoning."

      "Ha—half —" I gasped, but I could get no further. I felt the world slipping from me.

      "Don't take it so hard, Wilkinson. It's not your fault," he encouragingly assured me.

      "Murder! Two murders within this year — in my department," I said hoarsely. Then I laughed, a little hysterically, I fear. "No, no, it can't be! You have simply applied theories to figures. Those books have been gone over dozens of times."

      "Very well, let it go at that," he replied soothingly. "If the wrongs are beyond righting it's just as well to let them go. Let us say that it's all theory."

      Ah, the sweetness of his smile, the kindliness of that voice. I loved him and respected him for his composure, and the more respect I had for him, the more cordially I detested myself. Instinctively I put out my hand to him and he clasped it tightly, as though I had been a small boy whose feelings he tried to spare.

      "No, no!" I exclaimed. "Murder is an awful thing! It won't do to hide it. If it has been done once it will be done again. I want proof; I must have it."

      "I don't know but that you are right," he said, after a long, thoughtful silence. "I'll point out what I have found. If you want to look further into the matter, why I'll help you a little for the satisfaction it will give me to carry my theory to its logical conclusion.

      "Your records show that in the early part of this year you paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the life of Edward Martini; that he was twenty-six years of age, and that the cause of death is given as suicide," he said, referring to his notes.

      "Yes, the claim was investigated by our agents, and found to be flawless," I hastened to explain. "The policy had been in force nearly two years before death. Young Martini committed suicide at an insane asylum."

      "Ah! Yes? I also observe that the insurance did not accrue to the relatives of the deceased, but that the money was paid to a — let me see. Yes, to a Mr. Wilson, to whom it had been assigned."

      "Yes, yes. Date of assignment is six months previous to death of the insured, by his own hand," I answered, seeing the clearing of one suspicious case. "The assignment was made almost four months before the young man lost his reason, and was made payable to Adolph Wilson, as security for notes given in payment for a mining claim in the Klondyke."

      "You know this Mr. Wilson personally, I presume?"

      "I can't say that I do. He was not in this country at the time the policy became a claim, and the money was collected through a broker having Mr. Wilson's power of attorney."

      "So I had observed," answered Dr. Stone musingly. "You see nothing in this to arouse your suspicions?" he inquired.

      I confessed that I did not, and repeated that our agents had made careful inquiries into the details of the death, verifying the statements in the claim.

      "Let us go on to the other case then. When I refer to the Martini case again, I shall point out to you four things which are absolute proofs to my mind that the young man was murdered for his insurance money. Five months and four days later you paid a claim of two hundred thousand dollars on the life of Francis La Rue. The cause of death is given as cardiac syncope — in common language, heart-failure — and the claim was paid to G. Berber upon an assignment. The decedent was twenty-nine years of age, and presumably sound of health at the time his life was insured. Can you give me any of the particulars of this case?"

      "Yes," I answered eagerly, "Mr. La Rue's insurance, as the records have informed you, had been in force but little over a year at the time of his death. There was nothing to point toward criminality."

      "That's as you look at it. Please continue," he said.

      "Mr. La Rue died at his suburban residence. There were four guests with him at the time; all of them were assembled in the billiard-room. Suddenly Mr. La Rue turned very pale and sank to the floor. Before assistance could be summoned, he was dead. Of course an official examination was made. The heart was found to be filled with blood, but there was no impairment of the valves — a simple failure of the muscle to perform its functions, it appears. I believe that such cases are rare, though," I admitted grudgingly. I had told all I knew about the case.

      "And the assignment?" he suggested.

      "Quite in the line of ordinary business transactions. Mr. La Rue, as not infrequently occurs, had his policy made payable to his estate, which, so long as he was alive, was, of course, himself. He bought extensively of stocks in the Kern County oil-fields. For a part of these purchases he gave his notes, and to secure these assigned his policy."

      "To G. Berber, according to the records," said Dr. Stone. "In this instance, also, the money was collected through a broker armed with the power of attorney. Not the same broker who collected the Martini money, however. It has been nobly done, Toby. I don't wish to disparage your detective agency, but it is hardly to be expected that they would run down cases of this kind. It was a shrewd man who planned these murders."

      "Why do you still say 'murder'?" I asked, a little impatiently.

      "Yes, of course," he answered, coming out of the reverie in which he seemed to have lost himself. Thrusting one hand into his pocket and resting his chin upon the other, he fixed me with his gaze. "It's not common, I believe, to assign life insurance policies?"

      "Oh, yes; it is an every-day occurrence," I answered, quickly.

      "Yes, within the family, and not for a consideration. I should have said that it is not a common thing to assign policies as security for commercial paper. To make my deductions clear, I shall explain the theory upon which I worked in going through your books: A shrewd swindler, desirous of obtaining money from a life insurance organization, a man devoid of conscientious scruples, would be apt to resort to methods that would not readily arouse suspicion. However, as there would be some risk, he would endeavor to obtain a sufficient reward to justify him — a human life should not be held too cheap. Therefore I looked up the largest claims; there were five. He would endeavor to make the claim directly payable to himself in the event of the death of the insured. By what other method could he do this than by gaining an assignment? You follow me?"

      "I do," I answered.

      "Now we have only one link missing in the chain. Let us supply that by saying that these purchases for which the policies were pledged were worthless. Of the five large claims paid, I was enabled to eliminate three for the obvious reason that the money was paid directly to the persons named as beneficiaries in the policies; and I took the further precaution of looking up the length of time the insurance had been carried and the causes of death, none of which excited my suspicions. That simplified matters. Now, the man who would plan such a thing would not care to wait longer for his money than was necessary, and we have the fact that neither of these policies was in force till the third premium was paid. We have also the fact that in neither case is the cause of death sufficiently satisfactory from a medical point of view."

      "But Martini killed himself," I protested.

      "I was coming to that; just a little patience, Toby. A keen, cool, calculating man could not murder his victim in an ordinary way. On the other hand, if there were no suspicious circumstances the inquiry would be purely formal. If the man murdered himself, the company could not say that he had voluntarily entered into a conspiracy to defraud it. Young Martini went mad. Why? Was he driven to it? Was there a plot laid to deprive him of his reason? Was he frightened into taking his own life?"

      "Wait, wait!" I cried. Placing my finger on a button, I held it there until a boy came running through the door. "See if Mr. Shipley is in the office. If he is, please tell him that I wish to see him," I said. Then, turning to Dr. Stone, I continued, "Shipley is the one who had charge of the case; he can probably tell you something about it. Here he comes."

      Mr. Shipley was a jolly-faced, fat man with a shrewd, twinkling eye.

"'Do you remember the Martini case, Mr. Shipley?' I asked."

      "Do you remember the Martini case, Mr. Shipley?" I asked, after he had seated himself.

      "Yes, sir," with an elevation of the eyebrows. "Anything new in it, sir?"

      "No, but Dr. Stone is interested in — what do you call them, Doctor?"

      "In cases of insanity with suicidal tendency," Dr. Stone completed.

      "Oh, yes? Well, Doctor, the young fellow killed himself because he was just naturally afraid to live."

      "Eh! How's that?" I exclaimed, sharply.

      "The case itself was all right, so far as its straightness goes," said the detective, "and I didn't take much interest in the insanity part — out of my line, you know. But they told me, out at the asylum, that there were times when he was perfectly frantic; when he screamed, and swore that he saw horrible things that a man had no right to see and live; and — that's about all I know about it, sir," apologetically to the Doctor.

      I excused the man. When he had gone I sat in silence with my head bowed. When I looked up again it seemed as if Dr. Stone's kindly face towered way above me. He sat with his hands clasped across one knee.

      "I know just how you feel, Toby," he said gently. "You have had such faith in the perfection of your company that a thing like this comes to you as an awful shock."

      "Yes, that is it," I answered wearily. "Your logic overwhelms and convinces me by its very completeness."

      "But I've only partly explained one case," he interrupted.

      "Yes, but that looks so conclusive," I said, "and I don't know how you were led to these conclusions."

      "It is the elaboration of an old theory, practically applied," he answered, half-dreamily. "Every man has in him the elements of good and evil. One man is good, honest, upright, simply because he suppresses all of the evil that is in him. The criminal is bad because he crushes his better instincts; and the two classes are separated by as great a space as divides the north from the south. And yet, each class has in it some of the elements of the other. Mind you, I am taking, for illustration, the extremes of the classes. There is a class that must be studied by itself, and to which this broad statement does not apply. Now, why should a man not develop both sides of his nature to their fullest extent? Following this line of reasoning, I have persistently developed in myself the criminal mind. I can call it into play just as readily as I can summon my better instincts. It has ceased to be an effort. For the time I think and plan as the criminal would plan. I experience all his excitement, suffer all his fears; I become hard, mercenary, unscrupulous."

      "No, not you!" I said, aghast.

      "Yes, if you want to know what a man would do under certain conditions, you must put yourself in that man's place, subject yourself to the same stress." He lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

      Looking at his face again, on which no sign of evil showed, knowing as I did how human were his natural impulses, I could but wonder. I have seen him stop his cab that he might get out and pick up some maimed dog and carry it home with him.

      "Shall we go on?" he asked, breaking in upon my meditation.

      "Yes, go on; and if there is money enough in the company to bring the villains to justice, I shall see that it is done."

      I watched him narrowly as he half-closed his eyes and looked down. It seemed to me that a subtle change crept over his face; that the good look I was accustomed to see there faded away, and that a shrewd expression came in its place, a look of cunning.

      "A suburban residence is an ideal place for the commission of a crime such as this murder of young La Rue," he said. "It is probably some distance from where medical aid could be obtained. The young man died in the presence of his friends; and this, let me say, was the very safest method of taking a life. How was he killed? Poisoned, Toby, poisoned. I am as positive as though I had the proofs in my hand. A man in the prime of life does not have his heart fail him without cause; and there was none, for a game of billiards is not a very exciting sport. One of the vegetable alkaloids, some powerful heart depressant. That's all that I can tell you, for I have none of the other facts."

      I am ashamed to record the extent of my agitation. I fear that I have made myself out a weak man. But it must be remembered that I had never before found it necessary to study such problems and that they were revolting to me, to say nothing of the fearful shock it was to find that the company for which I had such a great respect had been victimized as easily as a petty tradesman.

      "Can't we follow this up, Doctor? If this sort of thing has occurred once, it is liable to occur again, you know. We can't let it — We can't let it! It would be too awful!"

      Dr. Stone pondered some time before answering.

      "I'd like to follow it up, Toby," he said finally. "If I work out my conclusion to its end I can prove my theory to the world, to its betterment. But I fear that it isn't worth while going to Mr. La Rue's residence; it isn't likely I could learn ——"

      "I forgot," I broke in; "the next morning after Mr. La Rue's death, the house was closed. It has not been entered since."

      "So? In that case I have hopes that I may discover something. I will drop in and see you in a day or so."

      With that he left me, after inquiring the address.
 

CHAPTER II.

      ALL the balance of the morning, all the afternoon, I thought of what Dr. Stone had said. I could not keep my mind on my business, and was unnecessarily crabbed and exacting. I supposed that, with the coming of a new day, I should recover my composure; but in this I was grievously disappointed. Try as I would, I could not keep my mind off those two awful murders.

      The more I thought of it, the worse it seemed. Now that I no longer had Dr. Stone at my side, acting as a sort of check and counterbalance to my volatile imagination, I went quite to pieces. I began to suspect everything, every one. I fell to scrutinizing every paper for some hidden meaning. Not a new application for insurance came in but I wondered whether it was not the precursor of some desperate, cold-blooded murder. The more I thought and pondered and suspected, the more nervous and irritable I became. If the International had been deceived twice, and with such skill and cunning that our intelligence department had not had its suspicions even aroused, what could we expect in the future?

      My lunch nauseated me. The cheap wit and shallow repartee of the club, in which I generally joined so heartily, disturbed me. I hurried back to the office without having satisfied my hunger. Throwing open the door, I hastened blindly to my desk, dropped dejectedly into the chair, and was about to give way to gloomy speculations, when I was startled by a voice which said:

      "Well, Toby, you really should be more sociable."

      I whirled my chair around. There, near the door, sat Dr. Stone, smiling at me calmly over the top of a newspaper. For obvious reasons I shall refrain from setting down here the commonplace things I said. I was glad to see him.

      "Well?" I interrogated, at the first opportunity I permitted myself. "The house — what did you find?"

      "It was quite too simple," with a little laugh. "At this rate I shall soon have to consider myself eligible for a place with the professional police."

      'Why — what — what is it? I asked.

      "Simply that, had I applied my theory a little farther, had I given my other nature full play, it would have been unnecessary for me to trouble to go to the house. I could have worked it out here just as well as not. When a man has a theory in which he has confidence, he ought never to go outside that theory except to verify it, not to assist it as it were. The problem was elementary." Pausing for an instant, he thrust a thumb and forefinger into his vest pocket and drew forth a little package wrapped in paper.

"'Ah, yes, this is it, Tobias. Here is the cause of poor La Rue's death'"

      "Ah, yes, this is it, Tobias. Here is the cause of poor La Rue's death."

      Reaching for the object, I found myself in possession of what? An ordinary piece of billiard chalk.

      "You've handed me the wrong thing, Doctor!" I exclaimed, turning the chalk over in my fingers.

      "No, that's it. Piece of billiard-chalk. Found it in one of the little iron cups under the edge of the billiard-table," he said.

      "But — it's not all so plain to me, you know," I protested. "I want to hear how you got into the house; what leads you to think this harmless little object ——"

      His soft laugh interrupted me. "Really now, Toby, I shall not tell you how I got into the house," he drawled. "I'm ashamed of it. Nothing had been disturbed since that eventful night. As I stood there by the table I let the criminal side of me get to work. Look at that piece of chalk. Do you notice anything peculiar about it?"

      "Almost new," I said, "and has evidently been dropped on the floor, for several little pieces have been knocked off."

      "Bitten off, Toby, bitten off. Don't you see the teeth marks? I had even decided that such was the case before I found the chalk. This is the way my theory worked out in that darkened billiard-room: If I were to kill the man with poison, a heart-depressant would —    But I had decided it was done that way before I left here the other day, so it was hardly working fair. I really felt as though I were taking advantage of a handicap in the game. The only thing for me to decide was the method of administration. First I had to reconstruct my man, to decide upon any little personal peculiarities. An unmistakable photograph of young La Rue assisted me. I saw a fine, manly, impulsive young fellow of a nervous physique. I pictured that man playing billiards. It was clear to me before I had thought two minutes and a half, that, as he watched his opponent make a difficult shot, he stood back and bit at his finger-nails; and then again, that, when he had a square of chalk in his hands he would take a nibble at it. Quite too simple, Toby. I merely looked around and found the chalk. This little block," balancing it on one of his fingers, "contains enough of that powerful alkaloid, aconitin, to kill every man and woman working in this office. A fiftieth of a grain is easily a fatal dose."

      "Who did it; who did it, though?" I demanded. "Berber, the man who profited, wasn't in the State."

      "Really, I'm not a detective, you know, Tobias. I wasn't seriously interested in who did it, but merely in how it was done," he answered in an injured tone.

      "Oh, Doctor," I groaned, "what use is all your theory if it's not practical, if it's merely abstract?" Completely discouraged I laid my head on the desk and groaned again.

      "Never mind, old fellow, don't worry about it. The difficulties you suggest ought to be easy enough to solve."

      Just then there came a knock at the door; my stenographer entered and laid some papers on the desk. Glancing hurriedly over them, I suddenly felt myself go pale as I jerked one paper from the middle of the pile.

      "Here, here! Can this be another murder planned?" I exclaimed. Everything excited my suspicions now. "Here is an assignment on a policy of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars — the life of a woman, too."

      "Let me see it," said the Doctor with more eagerness than I had ever known him to show before. "It would be a big thing to divine the murderer's plan before he had time to put it into execution." His eagerness was only momentary, however, and was suppressed almost as quickly as it had come. "I'll take it now, Toby, if you don't mind," he drawled. But, try as he would, the lazy look would not stay in his eyes as they ran over the paper, and insistent little smiles persisted in creeping from their blond ambush. It was plain to my eyes that he was pleased.

      My own emotions were in inverse relation to his own. There was nothing pleasing to me in that paper, for it spoke only of black tragedy and disgrace to my company. Give me the hardest business problem to solve; force me to fight against any combination of rivals; let me have the most unruly band of agents and solicitors to subdue, and you will find that Tobias Wilkinson has a will of iron. Let me feel my back against the International's financial wall, and I can fight to the death. But take me outside the legitimate realm of business, as these horrible murders were doing, and I am lost.

      "There's a very pretty problem here, Toby. One worthy of my theory, or law, as I shall call it. To beat the murderer at his own game; to forestall him in his plans, to block his steady march toward checkmate; yes, rather worth while, I think. This should be the proving of my theory, even as it will test the edge of my mind." He drew himself up with an air of conscious strength, his blue eyes flashed defiance and the muscles of his jaws bunched hard. "I'll have to leave you now. Keep me in mind of this, won't you?" he said, handing back the paper and resuming his lazy look.

      "You are not going?" I asked beseechingly.

      "Yes. There's a fly-casting tourney this afternoon, and I shall make a try for the trophy. Interesting sport, Toby. Did you ever try it?" he asked, with his hand upon the knob.

      "You're not going to desert me! to leave this case unsolved, and give the murderer a free hand and plenty of time?" I asked reproachfully.

      I was sorry almost as soon as I had said it, for, seating himself again, he explained that for the present there was not a particle of danger. The policy was only a few months old, and the assignment hardly had the ink dry on it. Was it likely that anything would happen for months? Was it likely, when policies were not incontestable until they had been in force for a year, that anything would happen before the year had passed? And there yet lacked many months of it.

      As I sat and listened to his reasonable explanations, and the drawling intonation of his patient voice, and basked in the glow of his encouraging smile, I felt satisfied and relieved.

      He was right, I assured myself after he had gone. It would assuredly arouse suspicion should anything happen to Mrs. Ybarra at this time. Then, again, the policy certainly did not become incontestable until after it had been in force a year. But, although I dismissed this latest problem from my mind easily, I could not get away from the two previous crimes. They thrust themselves upon me with an annoying persistence. Dr. Stone had said he would help me, but I had no right to expect him to devote much time to the subject. I could hardly lay the matter before our secret service department, for, so far as it was concerned, the matter was closed, unless I could present something tangible, and, so far, there was only theory. Why not put into execution my own reconstructive abilities?

      Dr. Stone had said "murderer." Was the term precise? Would it not have been more exact to have said "murderers"? Big, daring thoughts came to me. Suppose that I were of the criminal class? It would be easy enough for me to imagine this, for had not Dr. Stone laid it down as a law that each and every one of us had in him the elements of good and evil? If he had developed both sides of his nature, why might not I do the same! Then, what would I do if I were a criminal, and held life cheap, and money as the only thing of worth? I would kill.

      A cold chill ran up my spine as I permitted myself this thought. But resolutely I crowded back every good emotion and encouraged a feeling of brutality to come to the fore. I felt myself grow shrewd, daring, cautious. Yes, I would do this murder in the same careful way the others had been done. But would I stop there? No! A hundred thousand times no. I, a man of ability, an organizer, a manager of men, stop there? Was there not room in the criminal world for me to use my abilities? Must I do things according to rule? I asked proudly.

      A feeling of grandeur stole over me. I felt myself a very Napoleon of crime. I should organize shrewd men; I should form an association, a corporation of criminals. I should direct them and lay the plans. My corporation would carry on the work in every part of the United States.

      "Yes, in every part of the world," I said aloud, as the immense scheme worked out in my brain. Springing from my seat, I began walking about with long, nervous strides. There were other big insurance companies, some almost as big as the International; I should plan against them all. The great murder trust would control the world. It would pile up millions upon millions of dollars.

      I felt my heart swell with enthusiastic pride and my eyes glow with the fire of excitement. Was ever scheme more daring than this? Had ever a leader such as I risen? I walked rapidly back and forth, with bowed head and clenched hands. Without thought of what I was doing, I opened the door that conceals the washstand, drew a glass of water, and drained it at two gulps. I was about to put the glass down again, when I caught a sight of my face in the glass above the basin. I stepped back, the tumbler crashed upon the marble, and I slammed the door upon that face and for a moment stood tremblingly irresolute. I had looked upon the distorted, brutal face of a fiend, and it terrified me. Dr. Stone might indulge himself in all that sort of thing if he cared to, but hereafter no more of it for me. I went on with the routine of the day somehow; but the things I had thought I could not forget.

"I had looked upon the distorted, brutal face of a fiend, and it terrified me."

      I have made it an invariable practice, when I turn my back upon the office at four o'clock in the afternoon, not to think of business again until I return the following morning, and when at work to forget everything else. But that day my mind would hark back to Martini, hounded to his death; and to young La Rue, cut off in an instant. With a start I would come back to the murder that was yet to be. In the press of business I did forget for awhile, but when office hours were over the worries came back again. I left the office, vowing that I would fight it out by myself; but when I got as far as the elevator I turned back, went to the telephone, and rang up Dr. Stone.

      "Hello, Toby! What's the trouble?"

      "Nothing new?" I asked.

      "Yes, missed it by six and three-quarter inches; an awful disappointment," he said in a rueful voice.

      "Eh! Missed what?" I inquired.

      "Why, the long distance cast, of course. But I took the trophy for the delicacy cast, though."

      "Oh!" I replied, in a disappointed tone.

      "Won't you come out and see the new one I'm making? It's a beauty. I know you'll like it."

      A little later I found myself in the big office building on Sutter Street. His elegantly furnished waiting-room was deserted.

      "Name, sir?" said a boy, bobbing up from somewhere. "Oh, yes, come right in, sir," he said after a glance at my card, and threw wide a door.

      There sat Dr. Stone in his operating-room, coatless, with a slender stick in one hand and a piece of glass in the other. Sticks and shavings and spools of silk were scattered over the operating-table and on the floor.

      "Making my own rod this time," he said briskly. Got to do something to keep myself occupied, you know. Sit down."

      "Surprised to find me doing such things, aren't you?" he asked.

      "I shouldn't think you'd have time," I answered.

      "Time?" he laughed, with a little shrug of the shoulders. "Time to burn. Why, Toby, there isn't a patient comes to bother me half a dozen times a month. That's the worst of having such a lot of money, you see," he complained.

      Then he explained his position: Not being dependent on his practice for a living, he did not encourage patients to come to him, as so many young physicians had to make a livelihood out of their practice. For him, it was sufficient to know medicine, and if he could build up a decent indigent practice, as he called it, he should be satisfied.

      "I'd like to have one of the dispensary clinics, though. I might be able to help some of the poor fellows who can't pay. I could be practising medicine then, and not injuring the fellows who are struggling along," he ended.

      Could you help loving such a man as that? I couldn't.

      "Come, Toby, you're in trouble," he said, gathering up his rods. "Tell me all about it."

      I suppose I bored him with all my fancies and worries, but, if so, he did not show it.

      "Bless your soul, my boy, you worry too much," he said, with his sympathetic smile. "But, just to please you, we'll reason on it a bit; we'll apply the infallible law.

      "Now, Toby, in the murdering of a woman, we have a somewhat different problem from the murder of a man. The thing is to forestall and outwit the criminal. Let me see how I should do it."

      Watching his face narrowly, I saw the same subtle change take place in it that I had noted the day before. The trustfulness faded from the blue eyes. A sneer gave place to the smile that always hovered about the lips. All the soft lines faded away, one by one. The usually languid fingers beat an inaudible tattoo on the side of the table, then, drawing up his hand, he covered half his face; and I sat and watched and waited.

      Finally — sitting up with a start — "It's harder than I had thought it would be, Toby," he said, "there are so many things to choose from. The woman is a widow, fifty years of age. It might be possible to work upon her superstitions, drive her to some desperate act. I don't like that, though, because it is too commonplace."

      One after another he enumerated the plans that might be tried. He threw out poison because it had been used before. In the end he decided that the most desirable method would be an auto-inoculation of tetanus, "for," he said, "should lockjaw set in, subsequent to a clear history of some slight wound, there would be nothing suspicious about it."

      It was by arguments such as these, and positive assertions of the remoteness of the date of the impending trouble, that he sought to ease my mind. When I left him my spirits were almost as light as his own.
 

CHAPTER III

      THE next morning as I sat with a newspaper propped up before me, enjoying my coffee and roll I was almost happy. I skipped lightly from one news item to another; took a look at the foreign news and a dip at the local, but could find nothing that long held my attention. Then I did something that I cannot recall having ever done before — ran my eye down the column of death notices.

      The following caught my attention: "Died, Mrs. Jose Ybarra, 53 years of age."

      I read it through mechanically. I read it again, with starting eyes. I read it a third time, fatuously endeavoring to give the words another meaning. As the significance of the item forced itself upon me I felt my chin sag heavily, and a great faintness came upon me.

      Then came the reaction. The startled waiter must have thought that I was the victim of a sudden attack of mania, for, with a violent exclamation, I overturned my cup of coffee, pushed my chair from the table, and rushed from the building, carrying the paper in my hand.

      The fresh air of the street and the jibe of a newsboy brought me partly to my senses. I stopped, held up the paper, and stared at it again. The item was still there; I had not read it wrong.

      How I got to the office I do not know, I could not say whether I ran or walked. "Mrs. Ybarra dead! Mrs. Ybarra dead!" I kept saying to myself, over and over, in a dazed way. I was too deeply shocked to appreciate my mental condition.

      When I reached my desk I jerked the telephone receiver off the hook and called for Dr. Stone's number. When he answered, I said some meaningless, incoherent words, then hung up the 'phone again, and threw myself back in the chair and waited.

      Possibly it was not over half an hour before he came. It may not have been as long, but it seemed an interminable time. When he entered his face was anxious, troubled.

      "What is the matter, Toby?" he said. "I could not make anything out of what you said over the 'phone."

      I handed him the paper, pointing to the item.

      "Mrs. Ybarra dead!" he said, a note of surprise in his voice. "This is too bad, Toby; this is something unexpected." He stood holding the paper in his hand, a look of perplexity on his face.

      "Too bad! Too bad!" I stormed. "Is that all you have to say? Here a woman is murdered. We both had reason to expect that she would be murdered. We might have prevented it, and all you have to say is that it is 'too bad!'"

      "What would you have me say?" he asked, a dangerous hardness in his cold tone, a hardness that I did not at the moment note.

      "Say! I wouldn't have you say anything. I'd have you do something. I'd have had you do something before it had come to this. Instead, you lulled me into a false security by your sophistry; you tied my hands with your plausible —" I broke off short, for his fingers were biting into my shoulder.

      "Don't you think you'd better control yourself a bit, Wilkinson?" he asked, sternly. "Suppose you think awhile before you say things you may regret. No, don't apologize. I know how you feel." Then he turned from me and walked over to the window.

      Feeling that I had been justly rebuked, I shrank in my chair and waited for him to speak again.

      "Toby," his voice was sharp, "send for your man Shipley. Tell him to go to the Ybarra residence and learn the cause of death."

      When the detective had gone, I sank back again. I don't know how long I remained in one position — it must have been for some time. Not a word did Dr. Stone say until after the boy had entered and announced Mr. Shipley's return. Then he took me lightly by the shoulders and gave my chair a twirl, so that I sat facing him.

      "Now, Toby," he drawled, "I've given you time enough to recover from your shock. If you want me to help you, you'll have to pull yourself together; otherwise I'll throw the whole thing over. Now get Mr. Shipley in."

      "There's nothing wrong in this case, sir," said Mr. Shipley, with an expansion of his habitual smile. "Mrs. Ybarra died of apoplexy at about eleven o'clock last night. Her daughter was with her at the time."

      That was the gist of the detective's report, though he said a great deal more.

      "I think you look a trifle more fit now," smiled Dr. Stone, when we were alone again. "You're not responsible for all the trouble in the world. Apoplexy," musingly, "I hadn't thought of that."

      "But some one is responsible for this. We — we thought that she was safe for the present," I ventured timidly.

      "Suppose she really did die of apoplexy?" was his answer. "People sometimes do, you know," with a winning smile. "Look the thing square in the eyes, Toby. I don't like to see you overcome this way, it's not becoming."

      "It's the last time," I answered, "I'll never let myself go again." And I never did. "Then you believe it's another?" I asked.

      "There, you are more like yourself now. There is only one way to determine whether or not it is murder. When I assured you that Mrs. Ybarra was in no danger, I believed it. I still hold that my reasoning was sound. It is inconceivable that any sane criminal would make way with his victim less than two days after having perfected the arrangements that would assure him the money. My law cannot be wrong; no one is to be blamed. I should be the first to accuse myself of carelessness. We must learn upon what security the assignment was made. I must see the daughter. Will you go with me, or shall I go alone?" The drawl was gone from his voice.

      "I'll go," I answered eagerly. "Action may do me good; besides, we may pick up some clue."

      "That's right, pick up all the clues you want, but save them for Mr. Shipley; I shouldn't know what to do with such things if I had them." Linking his arm in mine, he led the way to the street.

      "Rincon Hill," I called to the driver of the cab, and in a moment we were whirling away.

      Rincon Hill is an old-fashioned section of the city from which the glory has long since departed. The owners of the few ancient mansions with stubborn yet helpless pride await the time when they will be crowded off their little eminence by the lusty work-a-day folk who have overrun the plain below.

      The house in front of which we alighted had once been a pretentious dwelling. It was evident, however, that its occupants had fallen upon evil days; everything connected with the place proclaimed it.

"As we ascended the marble steps, an old gentleman came down."

      As we ascended the marble steps, an old gentleman came down. He was a man far past middle age, with white side-whiskers and an exceedingly kind and benignant expression of countenance.

      Dr. Stone presented his card to the maid who came in answer to our ring, and we were conducted to a dreary-looking library.

      "You stay here, Toby; I'll be back before long. You might amuse yourself looking for clues." The latter was added in a low tone.

      After I had sat there during half an hour, his last lightly uttered words came to me. Clues are material things; if I could find one it might be worth while. Not knowing what I was looking for, nor where to look for it, I was naturally at a disadvantage. I began wandering idly about the room. The books were few; the furniture and hangings rich, but of a style in vogue many years ago. I drifted from gilt-framed pictures to a cabinet of curios, and from this to the window and back to the curio-case again. Then I consulted my watch and looked about once more. A little painting at the far end of the room attracted my attention. It was a rather good portrait done in oil; as I stepped close to it to obtain a better view, I was almost thrown from my balance by some small object under foot.

      "Ah! A possible clue," I said to myself facetiously. Stooping, I picked up a small cork and turned it over in my hand. It was a new cork, and on either side of it was a little gutter-like cut. My scrutiny was interrupted by the sound of approaching steps however, and I thrust it into my pocket.

      It was Dr. Stone. He did not enter the room, but stood in the doorway and beckoned me to follow him.

      Not a word could I induce him to speak all the way back to the office, and on his face was a set expression that I had never seen there before.

      After we had seated ourselves in my office, he drew a bunch of papers from his pocket. "We shall very shortly decide what we have to deal with," he said. "By the eternal heavens, Toby, it is well for your peace of mind that you did not see what I have seen to-day. I looked into a woman's eyes and saw the tragedy of a soul." His voice was solemn.

      "When I left you, I went up-stairs and introduced myself to the nurse. What I had come to find was the least of my difficulty, for very shortly I was in possession of these papers. Then it was that the nurse drew me one side and suggested that before I go I had better see the daughter. She led me to the room where the girl was.

      "You know the Castilian type, Toby? She represents it at its best; she is not full Castilian though. The moment I crossed the threshold of that room I felt I was in a different atmosphere. The air seemed to tremble with rebellion; the young woman looked at me with a challenge in her face, questioning my right to be there. It wasn't the time, it wasn't the place for such emotions; but, try as I would not to recognize the feeling, Toby, I loved that woman — I felt my heart go out to her. Perhaps it was because I felt this that I was so deeply cut by the tragedy I saw in her eyes.

      "I applied the law which you have heard me explain before. I put myself in that girl's place. I endowed myself with her attributes, placed myself in her station in life, and with greater success than I have ever achieved in following a criminal mind. What I saw was grief, despair, self-murder! I knew that unless I did something to change the current of her thoughts, and did it at once, she would carry out her evident resolution.

      "I sat down by her side. I took her hand in mine. At first she cast a glance at me that pierced through me. I did not pause. I talked to her as if she had been my own sister."

      I could imagine how he had done it, and how she had given way before that magnetically persuasive voice.

      "When I left her she was in tears. I'd rather see tears any time, Toby, than the look I had seen before."

      For the next half hour or so we were very busy. Borrowing my stenographer, Dr. Stone dictated one letter and telegram after another. First, however, he telephoned to the office of the Shasta County Mining and Development Company — that was the name on the shares of stock. The vice-president, who was also the assignee in the policy, was not in the city and had not been for a week. It was expected that he would return that afternoon.

      This, Dr. Stone explained, was what he wanted to know. He also stated that he believed the different assignees in the Martini, the La Rue, and the Ybarra cases were one and the same.

      About two o'clock in the afternoon, having received several telegrams, he turned to me with something like his old smile and said he had proof that the shares of stock were not worth the paper they were written on.

      "Then the thing to do is to prove the murder and have this man taken into custody!" I exclaimed.

      "I was certain I could rely upon you to say that," he answered, throwing me an encouraging smile. "Unfortunately we can't do things in that beautifully direct way. Shares of stock are worth whatever you can get for them. And, although I know exactly the method of Mrs. Ybarra's death, can I prove that this man Garthwait killed her?"

      "How can you get the proof that he did it, then?" I asked anxiously.

      "He didn't do it, Toby. The answers to my telegrams show that he was out of town every day of this week."

      "Who did do it?"

      "An agent," he replied. "This man is the principal, working under different aliases. We have uncovered him, and I think will be able to show that he is personating several men. He's too shrewd to connect himself with the tragedies themselves — even safe tragedies, as they are."

      "But are you certain that this was murder? Mrs. Ybarra's doctor says she died of apoplexy."

      "Yes, Toby, but he didn't know that it was an artificial apoplexy."

(To be continued)