so. But, somehow, I had the notion that your men had already
attended to him."

"I always prefer to finish my work in my own way," said the
investigator. "Osborne, as soon as he heard of Locke, through Sagon,
wanted to take up the trail. But I convinced him that he'd better
leave it to me."

Pendleton clapped on his hat.

"I'm with you," said he, "but where do you expect to find him?"

Ashton-Kirk rang for Stumph and ordered the car; then he replied:

"We'll more than likely find him at home. Burgess followed him back to
Cordova, last night."

They went down and climbed into the car, and were soon on the road.

A little distance from the Mercer Institute they came upon a compact
looking man seated upon the top rail of a fence, chewing at a straw.
He wore heavy, much-splashed boots and a sun-scorched suit of clothes.

"Ah," said Ashton-Kirk, "I see Burgess is still on the job."

"Burgess," echoed Pendleton. He looked at the man upon the fence in
surprise; except for the very broad shoulders there was no
resemblance.

However, Burgess grinned amiably through a rather neglected growth of
beard.

"I expected you along about this time," said he, to the investigator.

"Is everything all right?" asked Ashton-Kirk.

"He's still there," answered Burgess, and he nodded toward a house
with a peaked and slated roof which stood some little distance up an
intersecting road. It was the same house through the window of which
Pendleton had seen Edyth Vale some nights previously, but, somehow, it
seemed strange and unfamiliar in daylight.

"I can see three sides of it from here," went on Burgess. "And if he
dropped out of one of the windows on the fourth side I could sight him
before he'd gone fifty yards. You may be sure he's there, all right."

"You've heard of what took place last night, I suppose?"

Burgess tapped a folded newspaper at his breast pocket.

"So has Locke," said he. "Apparently his orders are to furnish him
with the papers as soon as they arrive. A man from the Institute
building brought one to him more than an hour ago."

Just then Ashton-Kirk noted far up the road upon which Locke's house
stood, a very small buggy, drawn by an equally small horse. In the
buggy sat a man whose huge bulk seemed to bulge out beyond its sides.
Arriving before Locke's house, the small horse stopped, as though from
habit. Then with a mighty effort, the fat man rolled out and waddled
to the gate. He pressed and re-press