d it on my table. The inner cover is
red. Bring that book here. Our secret is hidden in it."

Durbin disappeared on this errand. I followed him as far as the
door, but I did not think it necessary to state that I had seen
this book lying on the table when I paid my second visit to Mr.
Jeffrey's room in company with the coroner. The thought that my
hand had been within reach of this man's secret so many weeks
before was sufficiently humiliating without being shared.

[1] We afterwards found that these candles were never delivered at the
house at all; that they had been placed in the wrong basket and left
in a neighboring kitchen.

XXIV

TANTALIZING TACTICS

I made my way to the front door, but returned almost immediately.
Drawing the major aside, I whispered a request, which led to a
certain small article being passed over to me, after which I
sauntered out on the stoop just in time to encounter the spruce
but irate figure of Mr. Moore, who had crossed from the opposite
side.

"Ah!" said I. "Good morning!" and made him my most deferential bow.

He glared and Rudge glared from his place on the farther curb.
Evidently the police were not in favor with the occupants of the
cottage that morning.

"When is this to cease?" he curtly demanded. "When are these
early-morning trespasses upon an honest citizen's property coming
to an end? I wake with a light heart, expecting that my house,
which is certainly as much mine as is any man's in Washington, would
be handed over this very day for my habitation, when what do I
see--one police officer leaving the front door and another sunning
himself in the vestibule. How many more of you are within I do not
presume to ask. Some half-dozen, no doubt, and not one of you smart
enough to wind up this matter and have done with it."

"Ah! I don't know about that," I drawled, and looked very wise.

His curiosity was aroused.

"Anything new?" he snapped.

"Possibly," I returned, in a way to exasperate a saint.

He stepped on to the porch beside me. I was too abstracted to
notice; I was engaged in eying Rudge.

"Do you know," said I, after an instant of what I meant should be
one of uncomfortable suspense on his part, "that I have a greater
respect than ever for that animal of yours since learning the very
good reason he has for refusing to cross the street?"

"Ha! what's that?" he asked, with a quick look behind him at the
watchful brute straining towa