DOWN on the street, with a good breakfast nestling under my belt, things began to look more hopeful to me. I got a copy of the Record and one of the Dispatch ,and read what Dean and myself had to say about the latest criminal mystery of the town. It made a fairly readable story, if I do say it myself.

Next I want over to the Record office and left a note on Smithson's desk informing him that I would be out all day on an important clue connected with the case, and left grinning at what he would probably say.

Ordinarily I would have hesitated before doing anything like that, but some of Dual's spirit of confidence seemed to have crept into me, and I never doubted that I would succeed. With his advice still fresh, in my mind, I set out and decided that I would see Wasson first.

I marched into the police station and made known my request. There I profited by the fact that in writing my story the night before I had given the arrest of Wasson a fairly prominent place.

Harrington, the desk-man, greeted me with a smile, and upon my expressing a desire for an interview with Wasson, nodded assent.

"Funny thing," he said, "an' it ain't for publication neither, Glace, me bye, but th' coroner found some little pieces of skin under the nails of the girl's hand; an' by the same token, our new boarder Wasson is shy some of the cuticle on his left mitt. Now, what do you think of that?"

I grinned. "So the coroner found it, did he?" I laughed. "Well, he was a little bit more on the job than I thought. I got next to that yesterday afternoon, but kept it under my hat, thinking it might be a good clue."

"An' that was white of ye, Glace," said Harrington. "Come on an' I'll take ye back."

I followed him to the rear, where the corridors of the city jail began, and he passed me through the heavy steel gate; told the guard to take me to Wasson's cell, and turned away. I trailed after the guard, and my brain was buzzing pretty well. If Wasson had scratches on his left hand— Well, I wondered if he had a scratch on his left hip. That was all.

The guard paused, and tapped on a cell door. The man who was sitting on the cot raised his head, and then got up and came over to the grating. This the guard unlocked, and motioned me to enter. "A newspaper man for to see you, Wasson," said he, with a grin.

The prisoner scowled. "A chap isn't safe from you fellows even behind bars, is he?" he burst out. "I've seen the papers, and they have given me a mighty rotten deal, I must say. According to them I might as well be convicted right now. As a result, I have nothing to say, Mr.—"

"Glace," I supplied. All the time I had been sizing the man up. He was above the average in height, though I fancied not six feet; he was broad of shoulder, light of complexion; his eyes were blue-gray, his hair brown and thinning, his mouth was thin-lipped; he had a rather prominent nose. I decided to look for the scar on his hip, if I had to do it by force. All this while he was berating the press.

"What do they know about me?" he cried. "Nothing at all, except that I was so unfortunate to call on a woman who was dead. Would I have been fool enough to do that if I had slain her, Glace? I wish to God I knew who did kill her, for I loved that girl. I was going to marry her, Glace. I was taking a ring to her yesterday." And he stopped. "I didn't mean to give you an interview," he said. "Now I suppose you'll print all I've said in your usual brutal way."

"Did it ever occur to you that I might be here to help you as well as to serve my paper?" I returned. I saw that I must win his confidence if I was to succeed.

"Help me?" said Wasson. "How could you do that? More likely you're only trying to get me to talk."

"There is one way I could help you," I said slowly. "If I could find the man who was guilty—"

Wasson began to pace the cell floor, finally pausing before me at my last word, and bursting into a flood of speech.

"Glace, do you mean that? You don't believe me guilty? Lord, man, it's good to hear some one say that! If you're sincere in your belief, there is nothing I could do which I wouldn't do or tell to bring the real murderer to the chair.

"It isn't only being in jail that has crushed my very soul. It's the knowledge that Madeline is dead, and that somewhere her murderer walks the streets a free man, while I am unable to raise a hand. Do you really mean that you want to help me, Glace?"

"I didn't need to interview you to find out all about you, you know," I replied. "I have reasons to believe that I am on the trail of the guilty man, and I wanted something to help me in the chase, which I fancy only you can help me to get. That's why I came to see you to-day."

Wasson threw himself back on his cot. "Then, for Heaven's sake, tell me what it is," he cried. "Ask anything you will, and I'll answer you, Glace."

I looked at his left hand. On it were some livid marks as though it had been cut or scraped raw. "How did you hurt your hand?" I asked.

Wasson raised the member and scanned it, then passed the matter off with a shrug. "When that fool of a policeman arrested me yesterday I put up a bit of a fight," he said. "I think I scratched myself on his badge. What has that to do with the case?"

"I saw the scratches and merely wondered," I replied. "Would you object to telling me what you know of Miss More's history as far as you can?"

"Is that necessary?" the man inquired.

"It might help," I said. "Still—of course—if you'd—"

"All right," said Wasson, "only don't publish all I shall say. I don't want the poor girl's life bandied about in the press. Madeline was an orphan and always made her own way. She used to work for old Judge Barstow, but left him because she couldn't stand for some of the things she had to do.

"Barstow's crooked, for all he poses as a man of very high morals. After that she began to do special work in her line, and worked up a pretty good trade. Barstow even gave her work to do at times, I guess because he didn't want to lose touch with her.

"I met her last summer, and first thing we knew we were in love. I asked her to marry me, and she said she would. Yesterday I was taking her a ring which had been my mother's, which I was going to give her for an engagement ring. Her finger just fit the thing, and I had it when I was arrested. They took it away."

"How about the watch?" I asked.

"It was hers," Wasson declared. "Last week I dropped mine and broke the spring. Madeline insisted that I take hers to wear. So you even knew about that, did you? Lord, but you fellows do nose out a lot!"

"Did you know she had been writing a note to some one just before she was killed? It was to you, I think, as it began: 'Dear Reg.' "

"Was she?" said Wasson. "Poor girl. She often wrote me, in the evenings when she was lonesome, or blue. But I didn't know, of course."

"It was found yesterday," I explained, "and taken by the police. In my scheme of procedure it is necessary for me to be sure that the note was really written in her own hand. I kept a carbon copy of the note we found. Have you anything which she has written, which I could have for a few days—say until to-morrow, at least?"

"Not here," Wasson said. "I had a note or two of hers, but they took them when I was brought in. But there's a lot at my room, if I could only get at them. I—"

"Why couldn't I get one there?" I said.

Wasson turned to face me fully and fastened his eyes upon mine. "Look here, Glace," he said. "You may be on the level. Heaven knows I hope you are, and I want to believe in you; but I'd hate to give you leave to go poking around among Madeline's notes to me. They're personal, Glace. The poor girl put her whole heart into the things she wrote to me, and I loved her, and she's dead." He dropped his face into his hands and sat with bowed head.

I let him alone for a moment, and then I spoke. "I may be a reporter, Wasson, but aside from that, I'm a man. I'm not going to give your private notes to any curious public, if that's what you fear. Give me a line to your landlady authorizing me to enter your room and find one of those notes. It may mean your getting out of here; it may mean my success or failure in finding the guilty man."

The man on the cot raised his hand. "Give me your word not to publish the note, and I'll do it," he said.

"I've already done it, but I'll do it again," I promised. "Here, take this paper and pencil and write an order that will get me in."

I handed him my note-book and pencil, and he took them and began to write. Save for the faint-scratch of the pencil and his rather labored breathing, no sound filled the cell until he had finished, and then I rose.

"I'm going now," I said, rapping on the bars to call the guard. "I'll play fair about the note, Wasson, and as soon as I have any word for you I'll let you know."

I heard the guard approaching and turned to the cell door. "By the way," I said casually, "have you a scar of any sort on your left hip?"

Wasson whirled savagely upon me, his features writhing in a menacing scowl. "What if I have?" he cried.

"Shut up the noise," growled the guard, as he turned the key in the lock. "What's de matter with you, anyhow?"

"That man's a treacherous spy," Wasson fairly howled. "He's tricked me for his own rotten ends. Don't you let him out till I've got back what he took from me. Don't you let him out, I say!"

"Who're ye talkin' to?" demanded the official. "Say, looky here, my buck; you wanter sing small. Ready, Glace?"

I nodded and slipped through the door, which the guard promptly locked. "What d'yer get offen him?" he asked.

"A sample of his handwriting," I said, smiling, and the man with me laughed. "You reporters are sumthin' fierce," he chuckled. "I hopes yer never git nuthin' on me."

Back in the cell Wasson was yelling at the top of his voice. The words, half-choked by his rage, came faintly, but "liar and thief" was what they sounded like to me.

I lost no time in getting over into the district of "Furnished Rooms and Board," whither the address on the note Wasson had given me led me, and where I pulled a dilapidated bell and gave the note to a disheveled landlady, who read it, scowled at the signature, and told me to "Come in."

I accepted the invitation and followed her up a flight of stairs and back along the hall to the door of what was, I supposed, Wasson's room.

"You can go in and get what you want," said the woman. "Goodness knows, I don't care what you do as long as you don't write up my house. It's bad enough to have a lodger who goes and gets himself into disgrace of this sort, without having it all spread around broadcast-like. Everybody's talkin' about it to-day, an' Mr. Wasson always seemed a real nice young man, an' now to think I was harboring a murderer unawares.

"I've always tried to run a real respectable house, an' I guess this is going to do me a lot of harm, though how I was to know I really can't tell. Folks hadn't ought to blame me for it, as far as I can see. I hope, sir, you ain't going to make things worse."

I assured her I would not, and then passed into the room, leaving her still bewailing her hard fate. Wasson's note had told her to let me open his trunk, and this I now proceeded to do, and in the small side of the tray I found a bunch of letters tied with a string.

A glance sufficed to show me that the writing was similar to that of the note which had been found in the room of Madeline More. I have no excuse to offer for my next step, save that I am a reporter, and that I was on the trail of a sensational bit of news.

As a mere man, I would not have thought of doing the thing, but as a reporter the mere ethics of the situation had no place in my mind. I untied the string and let the letters fall loose in my hand, then I sat down on the edge of the trunk and proceeded to read them one by one.

The longer I read the more my interest grew, for, interspersed with the gossip of a woman to her lover, was mention after mention of the "Old Man," and again of "you know who." Always it was coupled with the mention of a sum of money running into large figures; the writer speaking as though she expected to obtain it from the problematical party to whom she referred in veiled style.

Evidently all this had not met with the full approval of Wasson, for the wording of the notes was at times an evident reply to a supposed protest of some attitude of the girl's, and at times a direct statement that she was capable of running her affairs.

I read on and on, until the landlady rapped and rather impatiently inquired if I had found what I sought I replied that I had, selected a couple of the notes, pocketed them, and returned the others to the trunk. Then I passed out, saw the woman lock the room door, and went my way, with a new bee buzzing in my bonnet, so to speak.

What had the girl been up to, from which Wasson had tried to dissuade her? I wondered; and who was the often referred to old man?

On the whole I felt elated. I had a sample of Wasson's writing, and I had an undoubted specimen of Madeline More's chirography as well. There remained Judge Barstow's note to verify, and I would have gained what I set out to get.

I pushed fate to the limit, and set out to see if I could find the judge. I decided to make the papers which I had found under the carpet in the girl's room my excuse, and when I reached his offices I sent in my card requesting a few minutes' interview.

After some delay the office-boy returned and led me down a suite of rooms to one at the farther end, where I found the judge. Again, as on the night before, I found him hatted and gloved, apparently just going out, but he waved me to a chair.

"I must ask you to be brief," he said.

"My errand will take but a moment," I explained. "Last night you spoke of leaving some papers under the door of the room in which Miss More lived in the Jason Street Hotel, I believe."

Judge Barstow was drumming with his gloved fingers on his desk.

"Well?" he inquired, as I paused.

"I found those papers, I think, judge," I went on, "and after examining them I can't see that they will probably be of any good to any one but you. To you they may be of importance, so I have brought them back." I laid them on the desk, beside which we sat.

Judge Barstow picked them up and gave them a casual glance.

"They are really of no importance," he said easily, "but thank you for your trouble, Mr. Glace, just the same. I suppose you mentioned finding them to the police."

I shook my head.

"No," I said, "I did not consider it necessary, as they could be of no possible importance in the case. Doubtless you have heard of Wasson's arrest. However, this brings me to the second part of my errand. I wish you would give me a line to state that you have received the papers, provided any questions should be asked."

"Hum!" Judge Barstow frowned. "Is that likely?" he said.

"Possibly not," I admitted. "Still, if any one else found out about it and they asked me what I had done with them, I'd like to be able to prove that I had done what I would say."

Barstow smiled.

"You're a cautious young man, Mr. Glace," he replied. "Oh, well, I suppose it can do no harm to do as you wish, since you have put yourself out to bring the things to me. Just a moment, if you please." He pressed a button, and my heart sank as a woman stenographer came in in reply.

"Miss Sutton," said Barstow, "kindly get me this at once: 'I hereby acknowledge the receipt of two legal documents'—take the titles from these papers—'from Mr. Gordon Glace, July 15th, 19—.' " He handed her the papers. "Write it at once and bring it to me," he directed. "I shall wait."

The girl withdrew, and we both sat waiting. I don't know of what the judge was thinking. As for myself, I was wondering if his mere signature was going to be enough for Dual.

"How much have they got on Wasson?" the judge inquired at length.

"Enough to send him up, I guess," I made answer. "That is, circumstantial evidence, of course. That's about all which will ever come out on this case, I think." Then I told him of the arrest, the watch and ring, and the other details of the case.

Barstow nodded at the end.

"Pretty strong. He'll have hard work breaking that, I fear," he remarked, and turned to take the typed slip which the stenographer just then laid before him on the desk. He glanced it over, picked up a pen, and wrote swiftly: "William Ferdinand Barstow," then handed it to me. "There, Mr. Glace, I hope that will prove satisfactory. And now if you will excuse me, I have an important engagement for lunch."

I bowed myself out and I went with a smile, for I had seen that the signature was in backhanded writing, and tapered toward its end.