PRESIDENT MORSE of the Morse Motor Works woke suddenly in the night. He did not know what had roused him; but he lay there in the silent, heavy darkness, uneasy with a vague apprehension. He was in his own bed, in his own room, and everything seemed secure and natural around him; yet some instinct warned him of intrusion and danger. He was alone in the house; and the quietness was so absolute that no footstep could be light enough to escape his ears, no movement stealthy enough to be unheard.

       But the stillness remained unbroken, and after straining his senses for a while in the dark, he had begun to assure himself that there was nothing wrong, when his relaxing nerves suddenly drew taut again. A slight noise came from the next room. Some one had stirred there, in the study. There had been a sound like the faint rustling of paper.

       Morse slipped quietly from the bed and very softly secured his revolver. Then he stole cautiously, with slow, crouching steps, toward the next room. He slipped through the half-open door and, with his revolver ready, reached for the switch on the wall. With a quick twist he snapped on the light. Even in the sudden, blinding glare he distinguished the figure of a man, and menaced him with the revolver. "Hands up!" he commanded hoarsely.

       The startled intruder stood motionless, blinking in the sudden light. After a moment Morse was able to make him out clearly; and he saw, not the rough, burly figure of an ordinary burglar, but a slight, good-looking, well-dressed man.

       "I've got a legal right to shoot you where you stand," Morse said savagely, "and I'll do it, too, the first bad move you make. Put up your hands."

THE BURGLAR SWAYED UNSTEADILY. "SHAY," HE DEMANDED WITH GRAVE DIGNITY, "YOU'RE IN MY HOUSH, AIN'T YOU? NOT NICE FOR A GUEST."

       The burglar swayed unsteadily. "Shay," he demanded with grave dignity, "you're in my housh, ain't you? Not nice for a guest. 'R 'm I in your housh? 'Pologize, 'm sure. Some mishtake."

       "Drop that nonsense," ordered Morse.

       "Lemme 'splain," urged the man, "'r you 'splain to me. I'm a peace-peaceful cizzen. Thish is my housh. 'R it's your housh."

       Morse came close and seized the intruder by the arm. "That bluff don't go," he said roughly. "Hand back what you've taken."

       The man measured his opponent quickly, noting his bigness, his keen eye, and the familiar way he handled the revolver, and he shook his head. "I'm no shief," he protested. "If thish's your housh, I 'pologize. Some mishtake."

       "I'll see about that." Morse slapped the man's hip pockets and felt around his waist. Finding no weapon, he put away his own revolver, and set about a more thorough search. The man suddenly drew away; crouched with clenched fists and flashing eyes, as one who braces himself for a desperate resistance.

       "Here, none of that!" exclaimed Morse, hastily picking up his weapon again. "Turn around. Put your hands behind you. One whack over the head with the butt of this will do you the same as a bullet. Now! Perhaps that'll hold you!" With a big handkerchief he tied the man's hands tightly behind his back.

       "I protesh against thish outrage," muttered the prisoner.

       Morse resumed his search. He found only the man's own watch, loose change, and personal belongings. His breast pockets were bulging, but the manufacturer merely noted that they were stuffed with papers, and passed them by. He had expected to find jewelry or silver.

       "Well, never mind!" he said, a little disappointed. "I caught you before you got anything. Maybe you're only drunk. If I turn you over to the police, I'll have to appear against you. I think I'll just kick you out the front door."

       He looked at the man again, noticing the aristocratic cast of his heavy jaw and slightly hooked nose. "Mighty queer!" he exclaimed suddenly. "No smell of liquor. That drunk is a bluff." But the man remained silent and turned away. Morse frowned, uncertain what to do. Then he decided. "There's something mighty queer in this," he repeated. "I've got a little cage up-stairs, though, where you'll be safe till morning."

       The man gazed desperately around the room and strained at his bound wrists. But the cloth was twisted tight and the knots did not give, and when his captor's hand fell upon his shoulder he obeyed its impulse steadily. Morse marched his prisoner up the stairs to a back room on the third floor. It was just four bare walls, without closet or window; lighted by a high skylight, and furnished with only a chair and a heavy iron bed. He shoved the bound man roughly into its dark interior and locked the door, leaving the key on the outside. The gray of daylight was just creeping into the darkness of the night when he got back to bed.

       At eight o'clock that morning Morse was at his desk in the study next his bedroom, taking a long, flat pocketbook from one of the drawers. The night before it had been full of stock certificates, representing the majority stock of his motor company. It was still full, but now it held only blank paper. Also, a neat little bundle of the paper was lying on the desk. For a moment Morse fingered the white, blank sheets stupidly. Then he jammed them back into the pocketbook and swore.

       "That's what the thief was after," he muttered. "Those were my certificates, in his breast pockets. And I had my hands on them, and passed them by! The clever rascal!" He started grimly for the room up-stairs.

AS THE QUICK STEPS APPROACHED HE SHOVED THE PAPERS UNDER THE MATTRESS.

       The prisoner had been crouching with his back against the wall, working at the bonds. As the quick steps approached, he wrenched his hands apart with a last desperate twist, snatched the papers from his pockets, leaped across the room, and shoved them under the mattress. When the angry manufacturer burst into the room, he found his prisoner sitting quietly on the bed, his hands apparently still fastened behind him.

       "You thief!" said Morse. He seized the man by the collar and plunged his hand into one breast pocket after the other. In the second one he found two certificates that the burglar had missed in his haste.

       "Where are the rest?" he growled.

       "Take your hands off me."

       "Give me those papers."

       "I haven't anything of yours."

       Morse flung him back on the bed. "Maybe it's best for the officers to find them on you," he said. "Hell! How near I was to letting you get away! I'm going to telephone for the police now. About twenty years you'll get for this."

       He stamped out, slamming and locking the door after him. A moment later he was at the telephone, calling police headquarters.

       "I've been robbed!" he cried.

       "Yep," answered the sergeant, indifferent to the familiar words. But a brief account of the circumstances won Morse the chief's immediate attention.

       "You've got the thief, you say? Don't do anything till the officers get there. Right away."

       In half an hour four men arrived: Lieutenant Burke, big and aggressive; Hunter, the young detective with a new method; and precinct detectives Lally and Donaldson. Burke looked the house over from the outside with an eye to possibilities. It was a narrow, three-storied building, set solidly between two others, so that there were no windows on the sides.

       "You stay in front here, Lally," he directed. "Don, you go through to the back of the house. Don't let any one out till we get our man."

       Morse met them at the door and took them up-stairs, explaining matters as they went. "This," he continued, "is my study, where I caught the thief. I had the securities in this pocketbook, in the drawer here of my desk. This morning I found the pocketbook full of this dummy paper, and the certificates gone. I found these two on the thief. I didn't stop for the rest."

       "The dummies are folded in the right oblong shape," said Burke, comparing the certificates with the little pile of blank paper on the desk. "He brought them to swap. They're thinner, but he had enough, and some over. He must have known the size and shape, but not the number of those he was after. If you'd just grabbed up the 'big wallet, Mr. Morse, you'd never noticed the difference."

       He opened the pocketbook, took out the packet of blank paper, and shuffled it through his fingers. "But, of course," he continued, slipping the paper back and holding up the wallet, filled again, "the minute she was opened, it was all off. Each certificate is a little folder by itself, and it's parchment color, while the dummy stuff in the pocketbook shows thin edges of white paper. Is this stock valuable, Mr. Morse?"

       "Very valuable."

       "You might have kept it in a safer place."

       "I brought it here for secrecy, rather than safety. I didn't want them to know it had been entrusted to me. I never dreamed of its being stolen."

       "Who's in the house besides yourself?"

       "No one. I'm a widower. My son is at college. My daughter, who keeps house for me, is visiting him. The servants, a husband and wife, are away at night. Last night I was entirely alone in the house. I want to turn this fellow over to you and recover the papers at once."

       "All right, we'll take him now."

       "He's up-stairs," said Morse. He led the way, unlocked the door, and entered the prison room ahead of the other two. They followed, and found him staring about in startled amazement. The prisoner was gone. . .

       While Morse had been explaining matters up-stairs, Lally had been sitting on the front steps, whistling softly to himself. The door opened suddenly and a man came out. Lally jumped up. "You can't leave the house, sir," he announced. "No one's allowed to pass for a while."

       "I didn't know we were quarantined. How long will it last?"

       "It's a police quarantine. It'll be lifted before nine, I guess," said Lally, looking at his watch. "It's a quarter to nine now."

       "All right; I'll wait."

       He lingered, looking up and down the street wistfully; but he was not a large man, and the big detective towered watchfully above him. After a moment he went back into the house.

       The party up~stairs examined the empty room hurriedly. The walls were bare, and there was no closet or hiding-place of any kind. Morse peered under the bed, hardly able to believe that the man could be gone.

       "I locked him in," he protested. "And the door was locked when we came back. That skylight hasn't been touched. He couldn't reach it, anyhow."

       "He's in the house yet," shouted Burke. "Both doors are guarded. Come on! We'll get him!" They dashed down the two flights of stairs to the front door. "That's the man," proclaimed Morse, when he heard Lally's description.

       "After him quick!" shouted Burke. "Lally, watch the front windows. Hunter, skip through the house and tell Don. We'll make sure of the cellar first. If he's up-stairs, he can't get away."

       The searchers scattered, and in a few moments shouts from Lally called them back to the hall. He had looked in at the front door and discovered the man sitting calmly at the telephone. As the group gathered, the thief hung up the receiver and rose quietly to face them.

       "I never saw him before," announced Burke after a moment's scrutiny. "How about you, Lally?"

       "New to me. He'll have to be measured up. The quarantine's lifted, sir. I said it would be, before nine o'clock."

       "I want my stock," said Morse.

       "Hand it over," commanded Burke.

       "This gentleman is wrongfully accusing me," answered the suspect theatrically. "I have not touched anything that belongs to him."

       "Search him," commanded Morse. Burke and Lally laid hands on the man.

       "I realize, officers," he said, holding them off as he spoke, "that appearances are against me. I am willing to submit to any fair test. Search me!" They proceeded to go through him in a professional and scientific manner, and he yielded himself serenely.

       "You needn't search him for a postage-stamp!" exclaimed Morse impatiently. "Those certificates make a good-sized packet. A man couldn't hide them in his shoes or his hair."

       "Here," said Burke, fishing out a curious-looking pair of forceps, "look at that pretty little tool."

       "What's it for?" asked Morse, turning it over in his hand.

       "Unlocking a door from the wrong side. You left the key in the door when you locked him in."

       "I see. Now I want my securities."

       "They ain't on him; not one of them. What did you do with the papers, captain?"

       "This ought to convince you gentlemen that you're mistaken," protested the prisoner. "I did not take any papers. Now kindly release me."

       "A poor bluff!" growled Morse. "He hid them in his room. We'll find them."

       The whole group climbed the stairs, keeping the prisoner well guarded in their midst; and it did not take them long to search the small, bare room. In the bed or under the matting were the only likely places of concealment, and the papers were in neither. Some of the men inspected the walls, examined the floor, and scrutinized the skylight, but they discovered nothing. The prisoner stood quietly watching.

       "Quit this foolishness and hand over my papers!" shouted Morse.

       "Can't you see," protested the prisoner, "that I've had nothing to do with your loss?"

       With an effort Morse controlled his irritation. "You had them in this room at eight o'clock this morning. You didn't have them at nine, when we caught you in the hall. You haven't been outside the house in between, so the papers must be here. You hadn't broken out of this room when the officers came. You'd have made your getaway, if you had. That was soon after eight-thirty."

       "It was a quarter to nine," interrupted Lally, "when he tried to get by me. He wouldn't be leaving the stuff behind him then. He went back into the house, and it was three minutes to nine when we caught him at the telephone. So he must have hid the papers in the twelve minutes between."

       "I guess we got you pretty close, captain," said Burke. "Where'd you put 'em? You stay locked in this room till they're found."

       "I protest," answered the prisoner. "I'm illegally imprisoned. If you have a charge against me, I demand commitment and the right of bail."

       "You'll stay here," growled Morse, "until those papers are found."

       "I don't get the straight of this," said Burke. "Let's go down-stairs and talk it over. Lock the door on him again, Mr. Morse. He won't get out now."

       "That fellow's no fool," he continued, when they had gathered in the manufacturer's study, "but I ain't wise to his game. Those papers are in the house. What's the use of his bluff? You're sure to find them sooner or later."

       "Sooner or later won't do for me," answered Morse, pounding his desk. "He doesn't need to steal those certificates. All he needs to do is to keep them out of my hands till to-morrow afternoon."

       "I was wondering how he'd negotiate paper like that."

       "He couldn't. In a corporate election the votes belong to the person to whom the stock is credited on the company's books. The notice is out that the books of the Morse Motor Company are closed to-morrow at two o'clock pending the election of officers. They're trying to put me out of the presidency, and those certificates represent the majority stock."

       "I'm no expert on corporations," said Burke. "I don't see yet. Did he want to steal the stock and have it transferred out of your name before the books closed?"

       "No! That wouldn't be legal. The stock's not in my name now. That's the trouble. It stands credited on the books to friends of the other party. It's stock that's been bought up secretly by my friends, at a high price, and upon my pledged word. I've been holding it back on the rascals because I didn't know what game they'd be up to when they discovered I had overcome their majority. They have just found out, evidently, and they've taken this method of keeping it out of my hands until the books close."

       "Ah!" exclaimed Burke, "that's the game."

       "Yes. I'm a manufacturer of motors; and I've made the reputation of the Morse Motor Company. We make the only successful two-cycle, air-cooled, friction-drive car in the world. Polk and his crowd are stock manipulators; financiers, they call themselves. They want to make money. Our company is conservatively capitalized at two million dollars. They want to water it up to ten million on the basis of enlargement of the plant. It would certainly make money for the present stockholders, but it would ruin the Morse Motor Company for making motors.

       "We'd have to earn dividends on five times our present capitalization. We'd to use poor material and cheap labor. We'd have to rush out inferior goods and depend on tricky salesmanship. In a little while our reputation would be gone, and we'd go under with the first hard times. Then the loss would fall on those who bought our watered stock. And I tell you I won't have it! If we don't get that stock back to-morrow noon, by twelve o'clock, I'll telephone my friends that I'm beaten, and let them sell out before the election. But we must get it. We've got to find it!"

       "Well, it's certainly right here in the house," said Burke. "We may have to tear things up some, but we can find it, all right, all right."

       "We'll search the house," said Morse.

       "Search the man," suggested Hunter.

       "We've already been through him."

       "Been through his clothes. The hiding-place is in the man's mind. That's the place to find the truth."

       "Sure," agreed Burke suddenly. "The thief's the one that knows. He'll tell if we talk to him right. Hunter, you and Don go up and get him."

       The two detectives returned with the prisoner, who folded his arms complacently and faced the group.

       "Now see here, captain," said Burke; "to save the trouble of mussin' up the house, Mr. Morse has a proposition to make you."

       "I want my stock," said the manufacturer. "Turn it over to me, and we'll let you off easy. What do you say? We'll let you off altogether. If you refuse, you're sure to get the limit of the law."

       "You're mistaken," answered the man quietly. "You find a drunken man in your house and charge him with stealing, to cover up your own tracks. But you have no proof against me."

       "Proof!" shouted Morse. "Proof! The stock is gone. The pocketbook is stuffed with paper. I found two of the certificates on you."

       "No, you did not," contradicted the man. "I never had them on me. My word is as good as yours. I demand my freedom. My imprisonment here is unlawful and unjust. You will suffer for it."

       "It's the third degree for his," suggested Donaldson. "He's got the nerve of an insurance agent, but he'd loosen up under treatment."

       "Nothin' doing," answered Burke with decision. "Things won't stand for it just now. Take him back to his room, boys. Mr. Morse, we've been wasting time on the man. We'll search the house."

       "Let me try the man," requested Hunter. "Perhaps I could find out from him."

       "It's impossible to do a thing with the fellow," answered Morse.

       "Hunter's got a new system that's worked once or twice," explained Burke.

       Morse waved his hand in impatient dismissal. Then he noticed that the others were giving Hunter's suggestion consideration, and he turned again to him. "What's your new system, young man?"

       "Why," said Hunter, hesitating, "it's to investigate the human side of a case. I work along the line of a man's conscience. The explanation of every action is there. You think the hiding-place is some corner. I think it's the man's mind. You'd search the house. I'd search the conscience of the man."

       "Huh! That's too deep," objected Morse. "They've never invented a microscope good enough or a light bright enough to read the conscience."

       "But one man can read another," insisted Hunter.

       "A man can't be read at all," declared Morse. "What shows what's going on inside him?"

       "His actions!" proclaimed Hunter. "His expressions. A man acts when he thinks. He can't think without action."

       "But he can think without showing it."

       "No, he can't! Not while he's alive! His body and his mind are one piece. He's not a man inside a body. His body changes with every thought. You can't separate a man's thought and feeling from his expression of them."

       "Well, even then a man can't be read. How can you tell what his expressions mean?"

       "By repeating them. If you repeat each one, you get to its meaning."

       "Then you'd have to imitate every little thing the other man does, to find out what it means to him?"

       "Yes, that's it! It's a fight; but it works."

       "It don't sound good to me. Anyhow, it's all theory. We'll find the papers quicker the other way. We'll search the house. I have an idea as to just where that fellow put the papers."

       "Sure," agreed Burke. "It's a cinch! Where do you think they are?"

       After they had looked in that place, Morse thought of another likely one, and then another; but the certificates were not in any of them. After half an hour of fruitless looking, Burke called a halt.

       "There's two ways of doing this," he said. "One is to go rubberin' round like we have been, and the other is to get together, start in at one place, and go through the house proper. That's the sure way. This house ain't so big. We can do it in one afternoon."

       "Come down-stairs and have lunch before we start," said Morse.

       "Go ahead, boys," ordered Burke. "I'll have to telephone headquarters first, and explain things to the chief."

       "Now," said Burke, after the lunch was over, "we'll go about this right. We began looking for the thief in the cellar, and he showed up in the front hall. So it's most likely he came from up-stairs. He'd rummaged the study over last night findin' the papers, so he knows that room. It's the likeliest place in the house. We'll start there!"

       When they had reached the study, Morse took out the long, flat pocketbook again. It was made of heavy, black leather, and consisted of but one large oblong compartment, closed with a full-width flap. Morse shook back the flap and held it up to view. "This dummy filling," he reminded the officers, holding the edges of the blank white paper between his thumb and finger, "just about equals the stock certificates, about twenty in all. You see how big a packet it is to hide. These two I found on the thief. We'll keep them in sight to remember what we're after. Now let's get busy."

       They started with the study. First they inspected the floor, taking up all the covering. Next they examined the walls, removing everything upon or against each one in turn, and piling all the furniture and movables in the middle of the room. One group, Burke, Lally, and Morse's man-servant, removed the things, examining each one carefully. The other group, composed of Morse, Donaldson, and Hunter, replaced the things, going over them carefully in turn. All felt that with such a system the hiding-place of the certificates could not be missed.

       No book was passed without being shaken. Every drawer, locked or unlocked, was investigated. Not an inch of space anywhere was neglected. When they had finished with a room, each man of the six was certain that the papers were not there. So they sifted through the entire second floor, without result.

       Disappointed, but with unflagging zeal, they continued the same system down-stairs, from the front room back through the kitchen. Then Burke insisted on searching the cellar, and they made sure of that. Evening was coming on when they mounted again to the third floor. It consisted of only three rooms - two front ones and the prison room. They went through the two others first. Then they stopped, a tired and disgusted lot of men.

       There was no possibility of any other hiding-place.

       "He must have had them on him or in his room all the time," growled Burke. "But we searched both. I don't see how he got them past us. He's a smooth one!"

       "Well, we know where they must be, now," said Lally. "We can go and get them."

       They gathered in the prisoner's room again, and searched him roughly and thoroughly down to his very skin. Then they examined the undisturbed skylight, and searched the bare little room so that not as much as a bent pin or a burnt match could have been concealed in it anywhere; but the papers could not be found. Morse was dazed. Burke was stunned. It was incomprehensible.

       Morse lost control of himself and swore passionately. Burke echoed the sentiments with fury. But the prisoner faced the storm without faltering. Their passion and their threats left him unmoved.

       A grim and silent group of men gathered for their second meal at the manufacturer's table. Shortly after supper the chief himself burst in upon them, and listened to the kind of explanations that beaten men give.

       "The papers ain't in the house," said Burke.

       "How could they get away?" asked the chief.

       "The man threw them out of a window, perhaps."

       "Lally would have seen that in front, and Don at the back. There are no windows on the sides of the house. There's no window in the room where you have him."

       "He passed them to some one, then."

       "One of the servants, eh, Mr. Morse? Not possible, you say. You were alone in the house. If the thief had any real accomplice he wouldn't have stayed locked in his room so long, when the key was sticking in the outside of the door."

       "Well, they ain't in the house," growled Burke. "You couldn't hide a piece of tissue-paper from the hunt we made."

       "What do you think, Mr. Morse?"

       "I don't see how we could have overlooked them," answered the manufacturer. "And yet they must be here somewhere. Where can they be? Where can they be?"

       "There's just two chances," said the chief decisively. "One is that the thief destroyed them."

       Morse winced from the suggestion as if in pain. "That's what I'm afraid of," he said hoarsely.

       "It's possible," continued the chief, "but not likely. There aren't any fireplaces in a steam-heated house like this, and so the smell of smoke would stay around a long time. The burnt paper would be as hard to hide as the unburnt. Did any of you smell smoke or come across burnt paper?"

       They all shook their heads. "I was on the lookout for it, too," said Lally.

       "Maybe he tore them into little pieces," said Burke, "and - and —–"

       "And did what? Swallowed them?"

       "Yes."

       "He'd have a hearty meal," said Morse. "There'd be enough to fill a basket. Besides, he couldn't have torn up all that stiff, tough paper, let alone dispose of it, in twelve minutes."

       "There were just two chances," continued the chief, quietly, "and now there's only one. We haven't missed anything. The papers are in this house. What's the matter with you fellows?" he thundered suddenly. "Are you blind, or a lot of dubs? You'll go through this house again. You'll start to-night. And you'll find them before to-morrow noon!"

       Morse came over beside Hunter later in the evening while they were waiting for the other party to clear a wall. "Say, young man," he asked, "what was that scheme of yours for finding what's in a man's mind?"

       "By repeating the result of his thought," answered Hunter shortly.

       "But this thief has nerves of steel. He's as cool and smooth as ice. Nothing that's happened has phased him. Do you think you could find out anything he didn't want you to know?"

       The chief, standing near, had listened to the questions. "Hunter gets results with his system," he answered. "He has done it."

       "Suppose," continued Morse, "you try to get to this fellow's mind and read where he's hidden the papers. I'd take a chance on a fortune-teller, or a ten-cent horoscope, to-night."

       "Lay off on this business, then," ordered the chief, "and start on the man."

       "Here." Morse banded Hunter a key to the prisoner's door. "Go up-stairs and go to bed in one of the other rooms. You can't do anything till morning, and you need the rest."

       Late that night the burglar woke suddenly and started up. The room was lighted and a man was bending over his bed. "What do you want?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you want?"

       But Hunter had not come to threaten nor to question. He bent over the bed without answering, as absorbed in the man's face as a doctor would be in the vital symptoms of a strange case. He craved a deeper knowledge of the features. He needed to study them, to become familiar with the look and play of each one.

THE BURLGAR BORE THE SILENT, SEARCHING SCRUTINY FOR A WHILE STOICALLY.

       The burglar bore the silent, searching scrutiny for a while stoically. He fronted Hunter, at first with indifference, then with interest, and finally with defiance. But the detective paid no attention to the other's attitude. He was intent on the man's contradictory features.

       The burglar had soft brown hair that ought to have curled, but that hung limp and straight. The low forehead was the kind that usually drew down in a scowl, but his was as smooth as a boy's. The eyes were the wide, unruffled blue of the Teuton, but his were set close together, and the crow's-feet were deep beside them. The cheek-bones were high, like those of an Indian, but he had the fair skin and red color of an Englishman. The nose was aristocratically beaked, but it was small. The lips were thin, yet they hung strangely loose; such lips are generally drawn tight. The chin was broad, the jaw square, as if for the foundation of a bigger, nobler face.

       "What do you want?" repeated the man angrily. "What do you want?" Still receiving no answer, he turned his back to his visitor. "Get out," he said, with his face to the wall, "and put out the light."

       Next morning the search was started again down-stairs. Hunter watched it for a while and then turned to his own task. He had an old-fashioned pair of handcuffs — two circlets of steel joined by a short chain. Outside the prisoner's door he stopped a moment and stood silently collecting himself for a great and trying task.

SO SUDDEN AND FIERCE WAS THE ATTACK THAT BEFOE THE THIEF COULD GATHER HIMSELF TOGETHER, THE SECOND HANDCUFF HAD BEEN SNAPPED ON HIS WRIST.

       The thief was standing in the middle of the room listening to the search below. He turned quickly and faced his visitor. Hunter closed the door and stepped to the man's side. Without a word of explanation he caught one arm and snapped a handcuff on the wrist. He twisted the arm behind the man and crushed him savagely against the foot of the heavy iron bedstead. So sudden and fierce was the attack that before the thief could gather himself together, the short chain had been passed under a rod of the bedstead and the second handcuff snapped on his other wrist. He stood chained, with his hands behind him, to the foot of the bed. Hunter stepped back and faced his prisoner.

       The burglar suddenly threw himself forward, twisting and tugging fiercely at his wrists, dragging the heavy bed to one side and the other after him. But his struggle was useless, and in a few moments he realized this and controlled himself again.

       "Take these things off," he said between his teeth. "What do you mean? Take them off!"

       Hunter made no answer. He got the chair from across the room and put it opposite the burglar. With his handkerchief slipped through the back of the chair and looped around each wrist, he stood in front of his man fastened in a similar manner. Then he drew up close to the prisoner and looked him earnestly in the face. The secret of the hiding-place was in this man's mind. If his thought could be read, then the secret could be learned.

       The thief drew back against the iron rods of his bedstead before these strange preparations. "What do you want?" he demanded.

       "Where are those papers?"

       "Go to hell."

       Hunter was centering himself more and more on the prisoner's face. As he had done the night before, but with greater ease and familiarity, he was going over the features one by one, noting the character of each, drawing his own thought closer and closer to the expression of the man's features. The face became larger and plainer to him. His world grew to be a low forehead, big, close-set eyes, a small, beaked nose, a square jaw.

       The thief stirred uneasily under the intent regard. "What are you trying to do?" he asked with some contempt. "Hypnotize me?"

       "You are going to tell me where those papers are," said Hunter tensely. He was pressing nearer and nearer to the point where he would be sensitive to every change of the man's features, and immediately responsive to their slightest variation.

       "Take these things off my wrists," answered the prisoner. "You won't find out anything from me."

       "You are going to tell me where those papers are," repeated Hunter.

       "I am not going to tell you anything about anything."

       It was a direct response to the question. The man had started thinking along the right line. With the whole strength of his attention centered upon his prisoner's face Hunter seized the movements that accompanied these words. The body had remained leaning back carelessly upon the foot of the bed; the eyes had not looked at him, but had glanced here and there about the room above his head; the lips had made the words naturally. The detective's lips repeated the movements of the same words in the same way, his eyes for the moment leaving the man's face and his body leaning carelessly back. He felt a sensation of calmness and confidence.

       There was not the least trace of doubt or fear in the expression. There was not even defiance. Fastened there a prisoner, and confronted with the statement that his secret was sure to be discovered, he had felt no uneasiness or anxiety. He was confident of the security of his hiding-place.

       "You are sure we can't find the papers," said Hunter, absorbing himself again in the prisoner's face. "You are sure we can't; but we can. We can, because you have not destroyed them. You didn't burn them. There was no place to do it. You didn't tear them up. You hadn't time. We know you didn't."

       The man did not speak. He was still leaning carelessly back upon his chained arms, waiting for the other to get through. But his eyes, looking above Hunter's head, narrowed a little, and his lips pushed out in a slight smile. The detective earnestly worked these changes over in himself. He found no contradiction in their expression. They gave him a half-sarcastic sensation, as if the prisoner had ironically complimented him upon the soundness of his reasoning. Then the alternative which they had feared was not the true one. The certificates had not been destroyed.

       "Those papers," continued Hunter with steady intensity, "are still in the house. You did not get outside for a single instant. You were not able to send them out. You had no one to send them by. There was not a moment when you could reach any one outside. You had no one with you. You came here alone. The papers are still in the house."

       The prisoner did not alter his position, and the slight smile came again upon his face. But to the detective it was not a smile. It came to his absorbed attention as certain slight but vivid movements of the man's features. And these were different movements from the ones that had produced the former smile. The upper lip drew back from the teeth, the eyes widened instead of narrowing.

       When the detective reproduced these changes, he found that they required an effort. It was a forced smile, not the former pleasant, cynical one. The prisoner had answered to the suggestion, and his expression was of an unpleasant feeling. He did not like the thought. He would rather the detective were not so sure that the papers were still in the house.

       "You couldn't hide them down-stairs," said Hunter, renewing his compelling intentness. "There were men at the back and front doors who would have seen you. We began to search for you down-stairs, and you were not there. You had the certificates with you when you tried to get out the front door. You went back up-stairs and hid them."

       The man shifted his feet and drew himself upright against the foot of the bed. He glanced quickly at his captor. His lips tightened, his eyebrows drew down. The detective had been holding himself sensitive for any changes that would bring him the feeling of negation. But the shifting feet, straightening body, and quick, frowning glance, when he reproduced them, required instead a feeling of uneasiness. It was like an expression of jealousy. He was coming closer to the secret now.

       "You hid them in the study," said Hunter breathlessly. "You had been through it the night before. You went directly upstairs again. You knew what you were going to do. You went back to that room. You hid them in the study."

       The man crouched forward slightly and thrust his face closer to his captor's. His lips drew back, showing his jaw tightly clenched. His eyes had narrowed to mere slits. "I didn't put them anywhere," he said through his teeth. "I never touched his papers."

       The detective reproduced the changes, absorbing himself in their exact expression. The crouched position, the clenched teeth, the narrowed eyes, as he slowly reproduced them, gave him a feeling of alarm, and of an antagonism so intense and malignant that he could not express it. The man's answer to the suggestion was opposition and antagonism. There was denial in his words, but not in his mind. His thought was like that of some wild animal snarling at impending attack.

       "You did hide them in the study!" cried Hunter, holding his attention fiercely and triumphantly upon the other's face. "You hid them in the study. Where was it? Where? You're going to tell me. We've searched that room through and through. We've been over every inch of it. What place is possible there? Where did you put them?"

       "What are you doing?" gasped the prisoner, tearing away from Hunter's gaze and twisting himself sideways against the iron bars. "I'm not going to listen to you. Take these things from my wrists."

       "You shall listen," answered Hunter. "You can not help it. You hid those papers in the study. There's no hiding-place possible there. You put them in the one impossible place. They're in the one place where they can not be."

       But the prisoner would not listen. He jerked his handcuffs against the iron bar. He twisted himself this way arid that. He laughed harshly and stamped his feet. Hunter had an almost overpowering impulse to beat his fists upon the man's face until it was mashed into a pulp; to fasten his hands upon the man's throat and choke with all his might; to tear the secret from him with bare hands. But he mastered the impulse and held himself to fierce intentness.

       "Do you know what you'll get for this?" he demanded, his whole strength stretched to its highest tension. "You'll get twenty years in prison. It's jail for you. You can't escape. No matter where you put the papers, your punishment is sure."

       The man suddenly turned toward him again. His lips were contracted in a smile, his eyes were wide open, his head tilted to one side. Hunter followed the changes - the sudden turn that presented the features again to view, the contracted smile, tilted head, and wide-opened eyes. "What!" he cried, hardly believing the sensation that he received. Here was the negation for which he had been sensitive. Here was the contradiction he had feared all along. "What!" he cried again. "You won't go to prison! You've put the papers where you'll escape punishment! Where's that? Where have you put them?"

       With a cry of rage the thief sprang forward the length of his chain and dashed his body against the detective's. Hunter was knocked staggering across the room, his arms jerking from the chair that held them, and he fell tottering against the closed door. Mechanically he grasped the knob and pulled it open. The distant chime of a house clock striking the hour came faintly to his ears. It was the first stroke of twelve. His answer was due.

       He was repeating to himself: "They're in the one impossible place. Where's that? They're in the one place where they can not be. Where's that? They're in the one place where they will not incriminate the thief. Where's that? There's no place like that, except - except - except - You've put them back!" he yelled. "You've put them back."

       With a shout that came like the echo of the prisoner's yell of rage, he sprang for the stairs. Down the steps he dashed with reckless leaps, stumbling, staggering, nearly falling in his haste. Through the second hall he rushed and down to the first floor. Morse was already at the telephone, dejection and defeat in his attitude. The other searchers were standing by, a dirty, tired, beaten group of men. Hunter cleared the last dozen steps in one wild bound and staggered toward them.

       "Stop!" he gasped. "I've found the papers! I've found out where they are."

       Morse dropped the telephone and sprang toward him. Like a match struck to tinder, his words fired the dejected men. They crowded round him with eager cries and questions. "Come on! Come on!" cried Hunter, trembling with weakness and excitement. "I'll show you where they are."

       He led the way up the stairs, the men crowding and clamoring with him. He crossed the study to the manufacturer's desk and sank into a chair. "In there," he said. Morse rolled up the top of the desk. A sudden silence fell upon the men.

       "In there," Hunter repeated, pointing to a drawer. Morse jerked it out noisily and turned it upside down upon the desk. Its contents scattered.

       "In that," said Hunter, pointing to the long, flat pocketbook. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was exhausted and his work was done. Morse flapped open the pocketbook and held it up to view. It was filled with white, blank paper.

       "Damnation!" he yelled, throwing it down upon the desk. "Do you suppose we hadn't looked here? What do you mean wasting time with your crazy talk and fool theory?"

       "But they must be there," protested Hunter, starting up from his relaxation. "He said they were. He told me so."

       "He told you so! And you believed that thief! Let me get back to the telephone. Get out of my way."

       Morse thrust him savagely aside and started for the door. Hunter reeled against the desk and clutched the pocketbook. "The papers must be here," he cried. "That was his thought. It's certain and it's true." He opened the pocketbook. It was filled with blank paper.

       He sank down on the chair, too stunned to believe the sight of his eyes. Tremblingly he pulled out one of the blank pieces. It was a thick oblong of paper, folded in the shape of the stock certificate. It bulged open in his hands. Hunter staggered to his feet with a yell that halted the men outside and brought them running back. Folded inside each blank sheet was one of the stolen stock certificates.

       "Fool theory!" yelled Hunter, throwing himself staggering upon Morse. "Fool theory! I tell you it's sure! A man thinks the truth! His mind's the hiding-place!"

       Morse snatched the pocketbook, and, utterly unconscious of the detective shaking him back and forth, he tore and sorted the precious certificates from their foldings.

       "I've got them!" he shouted. "I've got them! The election's mine! They're here! They're here!"

       "An' we looked every other place in the house, twice over!" exclaimed Burke.

       "The clever rascal!" said Morse. "Back where he took them from! What hold has the law on him now? The clever rascal! And you," he continued, grasping Hunter, "you beat him! You found out! How? That theory of yours. To the mind of the man! That theory of yours! It must have worked! It surely found the hiding-place!"

(THE END)