take you in charge."

Duff Salter gave a furious sneeze:

"Jericho! Oh! oh! Jericho!"

Calvin Van de Lear closed the door between the dining-room and the
parlor, and drew Duff Salter's tablets from his pocket and wrote:

"I want you to go up on the house roof with me."

Duff looked at him in surprise, and wrote in reply:

"Do you mean to throw me off?"

Calvin's sallow complexion reddened a very little as he laughed
flippantly, and stroked his dry side-whiskers and took the tablets
again:

"I want you to see the ghost's walk," he wrote. "Come along!"

* * * * *

Passing the sick father's door, Calvin led Duff Salter up to the garret
floor, where a room with rag carpet, dumb-bells, boxing-gloves,
theological books, and some pictures far from modest, disclosed the
varied tastes of an entailed pulpit's expectant. Calvin drew down the
curtain of the one window and lighted a lamp. There was a table in the
middle of the floor, and there the two men conducted a silent
conversation on the ivory tablets.

"This is my room," wrote Calvin. "I stay here all day when I study or
enjoy myself. The governor doesn't come in here to give me any advice
or nose around."

"Is Mrs. Knox Van de Lear serious as to religious matters?"

"Very," wrote Calvin, sententiously, and looked at Duff Salter with the
most open countenance he had ever been seen to show. Duff merely asked
another question:

"Has she a good handwriting? I want to have a small document very neatly
written."

Calvin went over to a trunk, unlocked it, and took out a bundle of what
appeared to be lady's letters, and selecting one, folded the address
back and showed the chirography.

"Jericho! Jerry-cho! cho! O cho!" sneezed Duff Salter. "The most
admirable writing I have ever seen."

Calvin took the tablets.

"I have been in receipt of some sundry sums of money from you, Salter,
to follow up this Zane mystery. I hope to be able to show you to-night
that it has not been misinvested."

"You have had two hundred dollars," wrote Duff Salter. "What are your
conclusions?"

"Andrew Zane is in Kensington."

"Where?"

"In the block opposite are several houses belonging to the Zane estate.
One of them stood empty until within a month, when a tenant unknown to
the neighborhood, with small furniture and effects--evidently a mere
servant--moved in. My brother's wife has taken a deep interest in the
Zane murder, and being at home a