frey.

"No you don't!" broke in Grady. "Stay where you are, Simmonds. I
forbid you to sign that. Remember, I'm your superior officer."

"No, he's not, Simmonds," said Godfrey, quietly. "He hasn't been an
officer at all for an hour and more."

Grady sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing, and strode toward
Godfrey.

"What do you mean by that?" he shouted.

"I mean," said Godfrey, looking him squarely in the eye, "that Mr.
Shearrow and myself had a talk with the mayor this morning, and laid
before him certain evidence in our possession--this latest case among
others--and that your resignation was accepted at noon to-day."

"My resignation!" snorted Grady. "I never wrote one!"

"Tell the public that, if you want to," retorted Godfrey coldly.
"That's your affair. You ought to have 'phoned it in when I told you
to. Now, Simmonds."

Grady stood glaring about him an instant, like an enraged bull, and I
half expected him to hurl himself on Godfrey; instead, he crushed his
hat upon his head, strode to the door, jerked it open, and banged it
behind him.

"Now, Simmonds," Godfrey repeated, as the echo died away, and
Simmonds came forward and signed. I witnessed the signatures, and
Godfrey, with more eagerness than he had shown in the whole affair,
caught up the paper and sprang with it to the door.

"Get that down to the office, as quick as you can," he said, to a man
outside. "I'll 'phone instructions. That," he added, closing the door
and turning back to us, "is my reward for all this--or, rather, the
_Record's_ reward. And now, gentlemen, Mr. Shearrow has his car
below, and I think we would better drive around to some safe-deposit
box with this plunder."

It was perhaps ten days afterwards that Godfrey dropped in to see me
one evening. I was just back from a week on Cape Cod, which had done
me a world of good; and, I need hardly say, was glad to see him.

"You're looking normal again," he said, surveying me, as he sat
down. "I was worried about you for a while."

"I never felt better. I told you that all I needed was to have that
mystery solved."

"And it was solved on schedule time, wasn't it," he smiled; "though
not quite in the way I had anticipated. Do you know, Lester," he
added, "I am going to claim that cabinet."

"On what grounds?" I demanded.

"Because the man who owned it gave it to me," and he got a paper out
of his pocket-book and handed it across to me.

I opened it and recognised the delicate