s."

"Well, looking at it from that side, I suppose it's so," said the dapper
young man. "But I've been accustomed to seeing Burton and his kind as a
sort of dregs, and I was just a little surprised when you began to look
him up."

Ashton-Kirk smiled and drew a long draft of smoke from the big pipe.

"It is, very likely, time wasted," he said; "for it's a hundred to one
that nothing----"

Here there came a long "blurr-r-r" from the lower part of the house, and
the investigator stopped short.

"I rather think," added he, "that I'll reduce the odds. For, unless I am
much mistaken, that is Bat Scanlon's touch at the door-bell."

A few moments later, Stumph, Ashton-Kirk's man servant, entered the
study, gravely.

"Mr. Scanlon, sir," he said.

The big form of Scanlon filled the doorway and then advanced into the
room.

"Didn't expect to see you again to-day," said he. "But there's a little
matter came up that I thought I'd get your advice on before I went any
further."

"Good," said the investigator, briskly. Then to the grave-faced servant:
"Stumph, get these books away. And Fuller," to the dapper young man,
"I'd like to have transcripts of those Treasury Department papers at
once."

"Very well," said Fuller.

When the investigator and his caller were alone, the former offered the
other some cigarettes.

"These are Porto Ricos of unusual flavor," he said. "Sent me by a
planter for whom I chanced at one time to do a small service."

He put aside the Coblentz, and with Scanlon lighted one of the
cigarettes. The full rich aroma of the island herb drifted through the
room like a heavy incense; and under its influence the troubled look
which Scanlon's face had worn lightened a trifle.

"I guess I'm a little up in the air," admitted he, finally. "It's always
that way with me when things begin to break wrong in anything I'm
interested in. Just when I need all my nerve and judgment, I get as
anxious as an old lady who's been sold the wrong kind of tea."

"You have no monopoly on the condition," smiled Ashton-Kirk. "It comes
to all of us, and in just the way you've described." His singular eyes
were studying the big man's face, and in their depths was a sort of calm
expectancy. "The personal equation has many queer results. But what is
the cause of your present upheaval?"

Bat shook the ash from the cigarette into a pewter bowl at his elbow.

"It's this murder," he said. "You know I went to Stanwick to-day to