y in this. "It is only my business to know such things,"
he would say. "We know many things. It is our business to know them.
There is no miracle about it." This was the public character he had
created for himself, and emphasized--that of the plain business man.
This was his mask. He was so subtle that he hid the vast range of his
powers behind an appearance of commonplaceness.

Wilton Barnstable never disguised himself, in the ordinary sense of the
term. That is, he never resorted to false whiskers or wigs or obvious
tricks of that sort.

But if Wilton Barnstable were to walk into a convention of blacksmiths,
let us say, he would quite escape attention. For before he had been
ten minutes in that gathering he would become, to all appearances, the
typical blacksmith. If he were to enter a gathering of bankers, or
barbers, or bakers, or organ grinders, or stockbrokers, or
school-teachers, a similar thing would happen. He could make himself
the composite photograph of all the individuals of any group. He
disguised himself from the inside out.

This art of becoming inconspicuous was one of his greatest assets as a
detective. Newspaper and magazine writers would have liked to dwell
upon it. But he requested them not to emphasize it. As he modestly
narrated his triumphs to the young journalists, who hung breathless
upon his words, he was careful not to stress his talent for becoming
just like anybody and everybody else--his peculiar genius for being the
average man.

The front which he presented to the world was, in reality, his
cleverest creation. The magazine and newspaper articles which were
written about him, the many pictures which were printed every month,
presented the mental and physical portrait of a knowing, bustling,
extraordinarily candid personality. A personality with a touch of
smugness in it. This was very generally thought to be the real Wilton
Barnstable. It was a fiction which he had succeeded in establishing.
When he addressed meetings, talked with reporters, wrote articles about
himself, or came into touch with the public in any manner, he assumed
this personality. When he did not wish to be known he laid it aside.
When he desired to pass incognito, therefore, it was not necessary for
him to assume a disguise. He simply dropped one.

The two men with him, Barton Ward and Watson Bard, were his cleverest
agents. They were learning from the master detective the art of
looking like o