ctor Blunt, almost betrayed into excitement, "this is
magnificent! This is the greatest windfall that any detective
organization ever had. The fame of it will travel to the ends of the
earth, and endure to the end of time, and my name with it."

But there was no joy for me. I felt as if I had committed all those red
crimes, and that the elephant was only my irresponsible agent. And how
the list had grown! In one place he had "interfered with an election and
killed five repeaters." He had followed this act with the destruction of
two pool fellows, named O'Donohue and McFlannigan, who had "found a
refuge in the home of the oppressed of all lands only the day before, and
were in the act of exercising for the first time the noble right of
American citizens at the polls, when stricken down by the relentless
hand of the Scourge of Siam." In another, he had "found a crazy
sensation-preacher preparing his next season's heroic attacks on the
dance, the theater, and other things which can't strike back, and had
stepped on him." And in still another place he had "killed a
lightning-rod agent." And so the list went on, growing redder and redder,
and more and more heartbreaking. Sixty persons had been killed, and two
hundred and forty wounded. All the accounts bore just testimony to the
activity and devotion of the detectives, and all closed with the remark
that "three hundred thousand citizen; and four detectives saw the dread
creature, and two of the latter he destroyed."

I dreaded to hear the telegraphic instrument begin to click again.
By and by the messages began to pour in, but I was happily disappointed
in they nature. It was soon apparent that all trace of the elephant was
lost. The fog had enabled him to search out a good hiding-place
unobserved. Telegrams from the most absurdly distant points reported
that a dim vast mass had been glimpsed there through the fog at such and
such an hour, and was "undoubtedly the elephant." This dim vast mass had
been glimpsed in New Haven, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, in interior
New York, in Brooklyn, and even in the city of New York itself! But in
all cases the dim vast mass had vanished quickly and left no trace.
Every detective of the large force scattered over this huge extent of
country sent his hourly report, and each and every one of them had a
clue, and was shadowing something, and was hot upon the heels of it.

But the day passed without other result.

The ne