at will give you five
nights' sleep and four days' rest. Don't you think you deserve it?"

"Yes," I agreed with conviction, "I do;" and I cast my mind rapidly
over the affairs of the office. With the Minturn case ended, there was
really no reason why I should not take a few days off.

"You'll come, then?" said Godfrey, who had been following my thoughts.
"Don't be afraid," he added, seeing that I still hesitated. "You won't
find it dull."

I looked at him, for he was smiling slightly and his eyes were very
bright.

"Won't I?"

"No," he said, "for I've discovered certain phenomena in the
neighbourhood which I think will interest you."

When Godfrey spoke in that tone, he could mean only one thing, and my
last vestige of hesitation vanished.

"All right," I said; "I'll come."

"Good. I'll call for you at the Marathon about ten-thirty. That's the
earliest I can get away," and in another moment he was gone.

So was my fatigue, and I turned with a zest to my letters and to the
arrangements necessary for a three days' absence. Then I went up to my
rooms, put a few things into a suit-case, got into fresh clothes,
mounted to the Astor roof-garden for dinner, and a little after ten
was back again at the Marathon. I had Higgins bring my luggage down,
and sat down in the entrance-porch to wait for Godfrey.

Just across the street gleamed the lights of the police-station where
he and I had had more than one adventure. For Godfrey was the
principal police reporter of the _Record_; it was to him that journal
owed those brilliant and glowing columns in which the latest mystery
was described and dissected in a way which was a joy alike to the
intellect and to the artistic instinct. For the editorial policy of
the _Record_, for its attitude toward politics, Wall Street, the
trusts, "society," I had only aversion and disgust; but whenever the
town was shaken with a great criminal mystery, I never missed an
issue.

Godfrey and I had been thrown together first in the Holladay case,
and that was the beginning of a friendship which had strengthened with
the years. Then came his brilliant work in solving the Marathon
mystery, in which I had also become involved. I had appealed to him
for help in connection with that affair at Elizabeth; and he had
cleared up the remarkable circumstances surrounding the death of my
friend, Philip Vantine, in the affair of the Boule cabinet. So I had
come to turn to him instinctively whenever I f