ON my way to the Urania I stopped in at the Y.M.C.A. night-school, and hunted up the professor of shorthand, who was a friend of mine.

To him I showed the little leather-bound diary, and asked him to translate some parts of it to me. He took it, smiling at what was to him my difficulty, opened it, and began to study it with an ever-increasing frown.

Presently he went so far as to give utterance to some expressions not at all suggestive of the Y.M.C.A. A moment later he handed the book back to me.

"It's shorthand, all right," he said, "but it gets me. If it's phonetic spelling, and it seems that it is, then it is written in the funniest lingo which I ever met. It's English, and it's not; it's Spanish, and it isn't; ditto as to Latin and Greek. What in the name of Sam Hill it is, I don't know. It may be a cipher; but it doesn't seem like that, either. It sounds as if it might make sense to a Chinaman with Dago blood in his veins; but as for me, I pass."

"Then, you can't read it?" I asked.

"Not having an attack of la grippe and hay-fever at the same time, I am not fitted for the task," he assured me. "Where on earth did you get the thing?"

"I stole it," said I.

"Well, for Heaven's sake, take it back," he advised. "I should think you had troubles enough of your own. Just looking at the thing will keep me from sleeping tonight. Why, it would give even a new-spelling crank an attack of the pip."

I grinned, and put the book in my pocket.

"All the same, I'll bet there's one man in this town who can read it," I boasted, for it had suddenly occurred to me that maybe Dual himself could make the thing out. "If he can't, I'll have to give it up."

"If there is, he's a wonder. If he does, give him my regards," said my friend. "I thought the bunch of errors handed in by the class last night was going to be hard to correct; but, after that, the work will seem like play now."

"Ignorance will always find an excuse," I threw at him, and bolted for the door.

Semi Dual himself met me at the door of the tower, and we went back to his study. I threw myself into a chair, and Dual looked sharply at my face.

"You are a bit late; you have succeeded in your task beyond your expectation, and you are physically fagged out," he said. "Wait, and I will get you something which shall renew your strength."

"Never mind that," I said. "I've a lot to tell you, and we've a lot to do. The coroner's inquest is at two to-morrow, and I've got to get my man by then or lose my job."

"If you should go to pieces nervously, you'd lose your job equally, wouldn't you?" smiled Dual. "A moment spent right now will be worth a week later on, friend Glace."

I said no more, and he left the room, leaving me sprawled in the soft padding of the chair. Now that I had at last relaxed a little, I began to feel aching and sore, as though I had been beaten to a pulp. Every movement meant physical pain, and my lids drooped from the weariness I felt. I wondered idly, almost indifferently for the moment, if I could go on, and then I felt sure that Dual would find some way to keep me in the running.

Then I guess I dozed, for the next I knew Semi was shaking me gently and urging me to drink from a glass which he held in his hand.

Obediently I took it and gulped what it contained—some sort of aromatic fluid which warmed me through and seemed to build a very fire of energy in my veins. I sat up, and reached into my pockets for the various papers which I had.

"I've got a lot to tell you," I began, "only I hardly know where to begin. I've got all the notes you wanted, and a lot more facts as well. Wasson has some scratches on his hand, and corresponds to your description in a general way, only he isn't quite so tall, and his handwriting isn't like the note I brought you last night. Wait, and I'll show you."

I sorted the papers I had, and selected Wasson's order to the landlady, which I handed to Dual.

"There's something funny about the girl, too. Some of her letters indicate that she might be trying to extort money from some one; then, too, Barstow's mixed up rather queerly in all this, and Miss More—"

"Wait," said Dual; "I have a fairly well-ordered brain, my dear Glace, but even it can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Let us first consider these bits of writing. We can then take up the other matters in turn."

He glanced at the note of Wasson's, and laid it aside.

"We can dispense with this; it is not of a criminal type. In that I cannot be mistaken. Now let me see the note or notes you found of Miss More's."

I handed him the two letters, and he opened them out upon the desk, glanced at them quickly, smiled in satisfaction, and, reaching for his magnifying glass, began to go over them word by word, line by line, while the involuntary pleasure of proven belief grew in his face.

At length he laid down the glass, folded the letters, placed them aside, and weighted them with a crystal tube. He leaned back in his chair, and turned to me.

"We are dealing with an unusual type here, Glace," he remarked—"one I have seldom been fortunate enough to find clearly defined. Under the glass the letters in the words of this letter are broken on the bottom curve. It can be seen clearly that the pen of the writer actually left the paper as it rounded the bottom of the letters, leaving a gap, well-nigh imperceptible to the naked eye, but shown clearly when magnified.

"Writers of this type are always innately criminal, though they may cleverly cover it up. Its significance is never of an ambiguous nature, and always indicates a person of monetary and financial unreliability. It shows most plainly in such letters as o, a, b, d, g, where there is a distinct loop at the bottom of the letter.

"Such writing in an employee should be absolutely damning, should he have anything to do with the handling of money or property, or any opportunity for double dealing in such affairs."

While he was speaking I leaned forward, well-nigh holding my breath. The writing he was describing was that of Madeline More, dead secretary of the Commercial Land Company, whose affairs I was positively convinced would not bear the light of day. When he finished I nodded acquiescence.

"All that only bears out my own later discoveries of the day," I said.

Dual smiled. "I am glad I gave you the reading before listening to what you know," he replied.

But I shook my head emphatically now.

"It is wonderful how you do it," I told him; "but I would have believed it, anyway. I think you have a convert in me, Mr. Dual."

More and more I marveled at the man's uncanny ability of tearing aside mere human veils and leaving men's souls bare.

I gave him the receipt I had got from Barstow, and he compared it with the note from the papers found under the carpet by Dean and me.

"They are the same," he pronounced, and laid them with the letters under the weight.

"Then," said I, "Barstow wrote the note, we found the other night, and left the papers as he said."

"So it appears," said Dual.

"And all you said of the original note applies to Judge Barstow as well?"

"Undoubtedly, Mr. Glace."

"Then, what inference do you draw?"

"I am not inferring," Dual affirmed, smiling. "I never speak unless I know. Suppose you tell me of the other things you mentioned finding out. So far, we have a dead person whose writing indicates unreliability as regards money, and a living one whose writing indicates the possibility of his being a thief with opportunity presenting. Let us see if there is any connection in the two cases. Tell me slowly, and tell me all."

"Connection?" I stammered. "Surely you can't think—"

"The story," said Dual, shaking his head at me. "When we are fully finished I shall tell you what I think."

He lay back in his chair, closing his eyes. "Go on—slowly—completely," he commanded, and I complied.

I told him every step of my day's work; of my visit to Wasson, and his words and actions; of my visit to Barstow, and of my trip to the court-house; of my interview with Baird, and my later trip to the office of the Secretary of State, and to the coroner's, and what I had found there. At the last I even told of my stopping at the Y.M.C.A., after my row with Smithson, and of my friend's failure to read the peculiar diary of Madeline More. When I had quite finished I stopped and waited for my companion to make the first remark. For some moments longer he continued to lie rather than sit in the depths of the chair, and I was wondering if he had really heard me through, when he began in a low tone.

"You did good work, Glace—very good work. I begin to see what it may lead to, this work of yours. Barstow could have organized this Commercial Land Company as a dummy holding affair, without letting his name appear at all. He could have used any of his office force, or any one on whom he had a hold, for his incorporators, giving each one a share of stock; then, with the More woman who was in his office posing as the head and main stockholder of the company, they could have incorporated; the dummy stockholders would assign their shares, and Miss More would assign hers also—in blank—and deliver the endorsed certificates to Barstow.

"Barstow could keep the books, and so far as any one knew he would have no interest in the land company, whose head would be Madeline More. With such a preliminary he could sell the lands of estates which he was administering to his phoney land company, and later through them to other persons or corporations, and, while bleeding the estates, yet remain completely covered himself."

"Wasson said Barstow was crooked when I saw him this morning."

"Did the girl tell him that?" asked Dual.

"So I fancy. He said she'd left his employ because she couldn't stand for some of the things she had to do."

Dual tapped the girl's letters. "It would appear from these that Wasson didn't approve of what she was doing," said he.

"What was she doing?" I asked.

"I would hazard the suggestion that she was trying to blackmail her former employer," replied Dual.

"For five hundred thousand?"

"Judging from her writing she was a person of large ideas," said Dual.

"But five hundred thousand—"

"Barstow is rated as worth several millions," Dual said, smiling, "and she was inviting Wasson for a tour of the Continent, you know."

"But would he give up that much, even to shut her mouth?"

"Evidently not," said Dual, "for Miss More died rather suddenly, I believe. Just how much evidence she had against him we don't know, but it must have been enough to send him to prison for a good long term. I believe you mentioned having a diary or something like that which you purloined from the coroner's office. Suppose we look at that, and see if it contains any facts."

I handed him the book. "It's written in what appears to be phonetic shorthand. Do you read shorthand?" I asked.

"Passably," said Dual.

"Well, Parker, at the Y.M.C.A., confessed himself stumped. He says it's in a language unknown to him, or else in a cipher code."

Semi Dual nodded slightly and opened the book. Presently he began to smile.

"Miss More was a lady of no small caliber, I gather from this," he said at length. "She chose a rather novel method of making her notations private by writing in a language which is but little known."

"Can you read it?" I cried in breathless eagerness, hitching my chair toward his side.

"Oh, yes," replied Dual, rather carelessly. "You see, it is written phonetically in Esperanto, which I speak rather well myself. Listen, and I will translate:

"This is a record of my daily doings as secretary and treasurer of the Commercial Land Company, into the duties of which position I have entered this day, September 1, 19—.'

"Really, Glace, you must have been working under a lucky star to-day. It looks as if we had our evidence here. Well, let's get on:

" 'I shall keep careful note of all that I may do, or be asked to do, as I suspect that this company is nothing save a means to an end of the man in whose employ I now am.

" 'He first mentioned the thing to me about a month ago. To-day he showed me stock-books and stationery already prepared, and at his orders I went with a certain party and filed papers of incorporation with the county clerk and Secretary of State. Nominally I am the chief stockholder, and the humor of that is that I haven't a dollar outside of my monthly check.

" 'Immediately after the incorporation we dummies of the judge transferred our several shares of stock—namely John Brown, one share; Kitty Hicks, one share; J.D. Dohn, one share; A. Small, one share, and your humble servant, 996 snares—in blank to Barstow, who locked all the books and papers of the company in his safe. Me the Commercial Land Company? Oh, yes—not.

" 'I fancy Barstow's up to some more of his shenannigan tricks. Well, enough of frenzied finance for one day. The old fox thinks he is covering his tracks pretty well, but he doesn't know of this record, and he couldn't read it if he did. Now, being a company, I shall close this meeting and retire to my bed. I wonder if this company will do much business. It's crooked, of course, but what's the answer, I don't just see. I will later, no doubt.'

"The next few pages are of no importance," said Dual, after looking them over briefly, "but this ought to interest us:

" 'I'm wise to the real cause for my being a company, at last. To-day we bought a lot of property from the Edwards estate. Barstow is administrator for the estate, and he advised them to sell to us. Of course he did; it's a good buy at the price they got.

" 'Shortly afterward he made overtures of sale—beg pardon, we did—to the Gordon Real Estate Company, and I guess the deal will go through. This little land company is merely a rake to pull the judge's chestnuts out of the fire, and keep his lily-white hands unsmudged. Great work! Honest, I'm afraid the old man is getting altogether too smooth for his own good.'

"Well, that's enough of that," said Semi. "It surely warrants our suspicions. Let's see if we can find anything bearing on any other part of the case."

Running the leaves over rapidly, so rapidly that I wondered at his remarkable ability to read the stuff, he finally began to read again, without comment of any sort:

" 'July 10, 19—. I have broken with the old man at last. I may be a willing tool of his crookedness in the affairs of the Commercial Land Company, especially as he was liberal in dividing the profits at times, but that is no sign that Judge Barstow owns me, body as well as soul. I have not liked his attitude for some time, and to-day I finally told him I would leave.

"He blustered a good bit, and I told him frankly that if he went too far I'd expose his whole get-rich-quick scheme. I never saw him so angry before. He even went so far as to threaten to kill me if I ever gave him away. Of course I don't fear that, as I am perfectly able to take care of myself, but he was so rattled by the mere threat on my part that I am wondering how much it would be worth to him to keep me still. I can imagine a situation where it might possibly pay me to have been an incorporated company after all.'

"There we have it," said Dual. "Glace, you've got the whole thing here in your hand. The More woman evidently meant to use this book as evidence in case Barstow didn't pay what she asked. Maybe she'll tell us more. Wait a bit."

Once more he gave himself to a study of the leaves. Once more he paused, nodded, and started to read:

" 'According to the tabulated deals in the back of this little tattle-tale book of mine, Barstow has stolen well-nigh a million on various deals in which I have helped him in one way or another. Now, if anything ever went wrong, I suppose he would have tried to make me the goat. As I have helped him to make the money, it seems to me that no one should know more about it than I, yet the judge refuses to see it that way. Well, time alone will tell.'

"So," said Dual slowly. "Let's have a look at the back. Ah, here it is. Well, well, well. Miss More surely had a logical head. Everything she did, every transaction, sale and purchase, is here set down with its dates. I guess that is all that we need to make our case. Here, Glace, take this book and hold on to it as though it were pure gold."

"She tried to blackmail Barstow, and he resisted," I said as I took the little book.

"Do you suppose he could have had anything to do with her death?"

"It was a case of two criminals of a similar bent, who fell out. One threatened to expose the other. In such a case we may look for almost anything."

"But would Barstow stoop to murder, Dual?"

"You remember, I told you he didn't mean to kill until his hands were on the woman's throat. Suppose you find out about what size hand the coroner's physician thinks made the marks on the girl's neck."

"I'll do it," I said. "Of course, then we'd want to know the size of the judge's hands."

Dual nodded. "Quite right," he said. "Also we ought to know if the judge has a scratch or so on his hands, and as a matter of interest I'd like to know if he has a scar on his left hip."

"The trouble is to find out all that," I said.

"Didn't you see the judge to-day?" questioned Dual. "Didn't you notice his hands, or was he wearing gloves?"

"As a matter of fact, he was gloved. He said he was just going out to lunch. He was gloved, when Dean and I saw him last night, too."

"Do you know any one at the Harmon baths?" Dual inquired.

"I know Joe, one of the rubbers, pretty well," I answered. "Why?"

"Because," said Dual, "that is where the judge is spending the night. I took the pains to find out before you came up tonight. If the judge has a sore hand or a mark on his hip, Joe might be able to tell us, don't you think?"

"I believe he would," I made eager answer. "I once helped him out of a rather nasty hole."

"Suppose you call up and find out," said Dual.

I reached for my hat. "I'll go to a phone and be right back," I said as I rose.

Dual shook his head, opened a door in the side of his desk, and took out a desk instrument, which he extended to me. "Use this one," said he.

I took it and looked at the man in amazement. "Do you think of everything?" I demanded. Dual only smiled.

I called up the baths, and after a bit of a wait I got Joe. I told him who I was, assured myself from his statement that the judge was actually there, and then preferred my request.

Joe listened carefully, and after a bit he laughed.

"That's funny," said he. "I've rubbed Barstow hundreds of times, and I know he's got a red sort of birthmark on his left hip all right; all we fellows here knows that. What gets me is what it is to the Record if he has got a sore hand. He has, all right, though, if you want to know. There's some scratches on the back of his left fin. He told me he got them tryin' to make love to his wife's long-haired cat. Don't give it out that I piped it to you, but you're in straight on the facts."

"All right, Joe," I said in a voice which trembled. "I'll see you pretty soon and make this right. For the present, thanks."

"Forget it," said Joseph, and hung up the phone.

I turned to Semi Dual and met his quizzical smile. "He has both the scratches and a scar on the hip," I said.

Dual merely nodded and continued to smile. "Tell the coroner to subpoena Judge Barstow to the inquest," he said.

"Dual, did you know all this all along?" I cried.

"What I knew was of little importance. What you needed was the legal proof. I have tried to help you get that. Knowledge such as mine does not stand at law nowadays, Glace.

"But to prove to you that it is genuine, I will make a prediction which you must never reveal; or, at least, not for a long time, and I shall put it in cryptic form:

"That which is done is done, and that which is about to be done will occur, for the law is that a man soweth what he shall reap. Like unto Jezebel shall the mighty be crushed and fallen; justice shall be done to all parties and no man shall have blood upon his hands, for only the guilty shall suffer, and they shall wreak vengeance upon themselves. Yet shall the law be upheld, and the penalty exacted, in an unexpected way. You don't understand me now, but at twenty minutes past three to-morrow afternoon, my meaning shall be plain.

"You will go to the inquest. You will tell the coroner that you have important facts to relate. You will insist upon relating them in your own way. You will tell a hypothetical tale and show this book of Madeline More's as proof of the tale. You can have the notes and papers as well. You must find out the physician's estimate of the time the girl had been dead when found, and the estimated size of the hand of the man who choked her. I think that is all."

"You are sure?" I half stammered, almost shaking with my suppressed emotion.

"I am sure," said Dual, "for the stars do not lie. To him who can read, they are an open book. You are tired, Glace; go home and get your rest. See me tomorrow night, and tell me what you feel like telling. Above all, do not doubt anything I have told you. Good night."