d tongue are your chief constituents. I'm not surprised
you make an occasional hit as a detective, because the average crook
would never suspect a funny little gazook like you of being that
celebrated sleuth, Eugene Clancy."

Clancy's long, nervous fingers had cracked the wrapper of the cigar
given him by Curtis, and he was now passing it to and fro beneath his
nostrils.

"You will observe the difference, gentlemen, between beef and brains,"
he said, nodding derisively at the bulky Chief Inspector. "He rubbers
along because he looks like a prize-fighter, and can drive his fist
through a three-quarter inch pine plank. But we hunt well together,
being a unique combination of science and brute force. . . . By the
way, that reminds me. If I have got the story right, Count Ladislas
Vassilan only landed in New York to-night. Did he drive straight to a
boxing contest, or what?"

"Wait a second, Clancy," interrupted Steingall. "Is there anything
doing? How much time have we?"

"Exactly twenty minutes. At twelve-thirty I must be in East Broadway."

"Good. Now, Mr. Curtis, tell Clancy exactly what happened since you
put on poor Hunter's overcoat at the corner of Broadway and 27th
Street."

Curtis obeyed, though he fancied he had never encountered a more
unofficial official than Clancy. Shrewd judge of character as he was,
he could hardly be expected to guess, after such a momentary glimpse of
a man of extraordinary genius in unraveling crime, that Clancy was
never more discursive, never more prone to chaff and sneer at his
special friend, Steingall, than when hot on the trail of some
particularly acute and daring malefactor. The Chief of the Bureau, of
course, knew by these signs that his trusted _aide_ had obtained
information of a really startling nature, but neither Curtis nor Devar
was aware of Clancy's idiosyncrasies, and some few minutes elapsed
before they began to suspect that he had a good deal more up his sleeve
than they gave him credit for at first.

From the outset he took an original view of Curtis's marriage.

"The girl is young and good-looking, you say?" was his opening question.

"Not yet twenty-one, and remarkably attractive," said Curtis, though
hardly prepared for the detective's interest in this direction.

"Well educated and lady-like, I suppose?"

"Yes, as befits her position."

"Cut out her position, which doesn't amount to a row of beans where
intellect is concerned. . . . Wel