red for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.

When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.

Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.

Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.

In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.

Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.

The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
Setter at his feet.

Chapter III

The Famous Conrad Lagrange

When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.

Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
directed him to the hotel.

That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.

In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining