ive could possibly be, Hobart Hitchin could only guess, as
he had already guessed; but it was a fact that he had been suspicious
ever since Anthony's appearance last night with the slim boy of the
heavy storm coat and the down-pulled cap. These, failing to harmonize
with anything that went in and out of the Lasande ordinarily, had
twanged every responsive string in Hitchin's consciousness, and not by
any manner of means had the strings ceased twanging after his unusual
interview with Anthony.

Hence, having returned to his own flat, he waited tense and expectant.
With straining ears he heard the coming of Beatrice Boller and the
subsequent excitement, and to him her peculiar cries signified another
friend of David Prentiss's who had come suddenly upon the grisly thing
that had once been the young boy.

And now those processes of deductive reasoning which are used so
successfully in fiction and so infrequently in real life, informed
Hobart Hitchin that the crime's next step was almost at hand. Accustomed
to murder or otherwise, an intelligent man like Anthony Fry would risk
no more of these disturbances; whatever his original plans, he would
seek very shortly to get the body out of the Lasande--hardly in grips,
Hitchin fancied, probably not in a packing case, rather in that reliable
actor in so many sensational murders, a trunk.

Here, on the floor above him, some one moved and bumped what was
unquestionably a hollow, empty trunk!

As the veteran fireman responds to the gong, so did the brain of Hobart
Hitchin respond to that bump! Fifteen seconds and he had visualized the
whole of the next step; the trunk to the freight elevator, thence to the
street, thence to the waiting motor express wagon, thence--

Again, after a time, came the bump, indicating that the trunk was in the
living-room now--and then, absolutely true to the hypothesis, Anthony's
door opened and the bumps went to the hall, while the freight elevator
came up the shaft!

The brief-case containing the trousers of David Prentiss had not left
Hobart Hitchin's cold hand. It did not leave now as, snatching a hat, he
sped down the back stairs of the Lasande--a proceeding likely to save
five seconds at least when one considered the slow response of the
elevators--cut through the second floor and came down to the side
entrance, just beyond the office and the desk.

There was a taxicab as usual at the curb just here. Without leaving the
vestibule, Hobart Hi