was from Mr. Gryce and ran thus:

"Steal off, if you can, and as soon as you can, and meet me in
Twenty-ninth Street. A discovery has been made which alters the whole
situation."

XXII. O. B. AGAIN

"What's happened? Something very important. I ought to hope so after
this confounded failure."

"Failure? Didn't he read the letters?"

"Yes, he read them. Had to, but--"

"Didn't weaken? Eh?"

"No, he didn't weaken. You can't get water out of a millstone. You may
squeeze and squeeze; but it's your fingers which suffer, not it. He
thinks we manufactured those letters ourselves on purpose draw him."

"Humph! I knew we had a reputation for finesse, but I didn't know that
it ran that high."

"He denies everything. Said she would never have written such letters to
him; even goes so far to declare that if she did write them--(he must
be strangely ignorant of her handwriting) they were meant for some
other man than himself. All rot, but--" A hitch of the shoulder conveyed
Sweetwater's disgust. His uniform good nature was strangely disturbed.

But Mr. Gryce's was not. The faint smile with which he smoothed with an
easy, circling movement, the already polished top of his ever
present cane conveyed a secret complacency which called up a flash of
discomfiture to his greatly irritated companion.

"He says that, does he? You found him on the whole tolerably
straightforward, eh? A hard nut; but hard nuts are usually sound ones.
Come, now! prejudice aside, what's your honest opinion of the man you've
had under your eye and ear for three solid weeks? Hasn't there been the
best of reasons for your failure? Speak up, my boy. Squarely, now."

"I can't. I hate the fellow. I hate any one who makes me look
ridiculous. He--well, well, if you'll have it, sir, I will say this
much. If it weren't for that blasted coincidence of the two deaths
equally mysterious, equally under his eye, I'd stake my life on his
honesty. But that coincidence stumps me and--and a sort of feeling I
have here."

It is to be hoped that the slap he gave his breast, at this point,
carried off some of his superfluous emotion. "You can't account for a
feeling, Mr. Gryce. The man has no heart. He's as hard as rocks."

"A not uncommon lack where the head plays so big a part. We can't hang
him on any such argument as that. You've found no evidence against him?"

"N--no." The hesitating admission was only a proof of Sweetwater's
obstinacy.

"Then list