m. Inside of half an hour we'd done a lot
too. We'd called up their headquarters' man on the 'phone and had him
sketch off the case against one Allston, a butler.

"Yep, grand larceny," says Whitey, his ear to the receiver. "We know
that. How much? Eh? Twenty thousand!"

"Ah, tell him to turn over: he's on his back!" says I. "Not twenty
thousand cash?"

"That's what he says," insists Whitey, "all in hundreds. Lifted out of a
secret wall safe."

"Ask him where this guy was buttling,--in a bank," says I, "or at the
Subtreasury?"

And Whitey reports that Allston was workin' for a Mrs. Murtha, West 76th
Street; "Mrs. Connie Murtha, you know," he goes on, "the big poolroom
backer, and one of the flossiest, foxiest widows in New York."

"Then that accounts for the husky wad," says I. "Twenty thousand! No
piker, was he? Ask your man who's on the case?"

"Rusitelli & Donahue," says Whitey. "Mike's a friend of mine too; but he
never talks much."

"Let's have a try, anyway," says I.

So we runs this partic'lar detective sergeant down, drags him away from
a penuchle game, and Whitey begins by suggestin' that we hear how he's
done some clever work on the Allston case.

"I got him right, that's all," says Mike. "And he'd faked up a nice
little stall too."

"Anything on him when you rounded him up?" asks Whitey.

Donahue shakes his head disgusted. "Stowed it," says he.

"Some cute, eh?" says Whitey.

"Bah!" says Mike. "Who was it sprung that tale about his being a big
English crook? The Yard never heard of him. I doped him out from the
first, though. Plain nut! The Chief wouldn't believe it until I showed
him."

"Showed him what?" says Whitey, innocent like.

"This," says the sleuth, haulin' out of his pocket a bulgy envelope. "I
found that in his room. Take a look," and he lifts the flap at the end.

"What the deuce!" says Whitey.

"Sawdust," says Mike, "just plain, everyday sawdust. I had it
analyzed,--no dope, no nothing. Now tell me, would anyone but a nut do a
thing like that?"

We both agreed nobody but a nut would; also we remarks in chorus that
Mr. Donahue is some classy sleuth, which he don't object to at all. In
fact, after I've explained how a relation of Allston's had asked me to
look him up he fixes it so I can get a pass into the Tombs. Followin'
which I blows Whitey to one of Farroni's seventy-five-cent spaghetti
banquets and then goes home to think a few chunks of thought.

As the case stood