Flaming Hate

by Johnston McCulley

Flaming Hate

by

Johnston McCulley

Author of “The Great Fear,” etc.

CHAPTER I.
Violent Death.

JIM MERKER, member of the city detective force, stretched himself in his chair so that he could rest his feet on the bench before him, and puffed at his freshly lighted cigar. He was the only man in the detectives' room at headquarters save the desk sergeant, who was busy with his reports.

“I said it,” Jim Merker grumbled. “A man of genius, such as your humble servant, is liable to go stale around this place. What have I been doing the past six weeks? Gathering reports from pawn shops and second-hand stores, investigating neighborhood rows, and pinching men for putting boxes on the sidewalks.”

“We can't have a murder sensation every week just to please you fly cops,” the sergeant observed.

“Tell me what's the use of being on the homicide squad then?” Merker demanded. “I might as well be pounding a beat.”

“Want to get your name in the papers?”

Jim Merker's feet hit the floor with a threatening thud, and the desk sergeant looked up quickly and grinned. He knew that he had touched the popular detective on a sore spot.

“I care a lot about getting my name in the papers, and you know it,” Jim Merker declared forcefully. “But I do like a tough case to work on. I like to make wild guesses and then find that they are correct. I like to have rogues try to fool me, and get the better of them. I like the game—confound it!”

“Be that as it may,” the desk sergeant observed, “seems to me we ought to be having a sensation of some sort.”

“It's long overdue,” Detective Jim Merker complained. “I'm getting rusty. If something doesn't happen before long I'll——”

He swung around in his chair and looked through the window at the street seething with humanity. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and it was a warm spring day.

“Can't even go to a baseball game and nab a pickpocket,” Merker said. “Season doesn't open for a week yet.”

“And when it does open you won't be so eager for cases to work on,” the knowing desk sergeant replied, grinning at the detective again.

A buzzer sounded, and the sergeant spoke into the telephone in front of him. He whirled around and faced Merker.

“Captain's office—you!” was all he said.

Merker groaned as he got out of his chair and adjusted his belt. Also, he made a wry face as he stalked toward the door.

“Lost kid, probably,” he remarked. “Or maybe the wife of some estimable citizen wants me to get a pet cat down out of a high tree. Homicide squad—huh!”

A moment later he stood beside his captain's desk and looked down at him expectantly.

“Dead man—shot—may be murder—possibly suicide—here's the address!”

As he took the little slip of paper hope flamed into Detective Merker's heart. The address, he found, was in a street in that section of the city where, it might be said, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat mingled. Anything was possible in that district of small shops with private apartments on the second and third floors. Merker did not hope that some person had met a violent death, but, if some person had, he was glad to be assigned to the case.

He hurried from headquarters, caught a car, and rode downtown. He had two squares to walk after he left the car, and he made them quickly. Half a block from the address he saw that a crowd had gathered. Merker thrust his way through it, to find a patrolman on guard before the entrance to a stairway.

“What is it?” Merker asked.

“Looks like homicide,” the patrolman answered, “I guess it is in your line, all right. Little apartment up one flight. I've kept the crowd out. Janitor found the body—here he is.”

“Who is it?” Merker asked the janitor.

“I'm not quite sure, sir. When he rented the apartment about a month ago he said that his name was Jones. He was middle-aged, and a distinguished-looking man, sir.”

“What happened?” Merker snappily questioned.

“I didn't hear any shot, sir, though I was sittin' here by the door, like I always do in the afternoons when the weather is nice. I just happened to go up and along the hall to get a broom out of my closet. The door of the apartment was half open, sir, and I glanced inside and saw a man on the floor. I went in, of course, thinking he might be sick, or somethin' like that. He was sprawled there dead, with a revolver on the floor beside him. I shut the door and hurried down the stairs, and the policeman was just passing along——”

“I hurried up and took a look and then telephoned headquarters,” the patrolman told Merker. “I've been keeping out the crowd since then.”

Merker nodded and started up the stairs. He didn't think much of the case so far. His experience told him that probably some man had been wrecked in business, had moved to this cheap apartment, had been unable to get upon his financial feet again, and had ended everything with a shot from a revolver.

He came to the top of the stairs and opened the door. An instant later he was in the room. He stood just inside the door and glanced around quickly.

The man was sprawled face downward in the middle of the room, not far from a table upon which there were books and documents. A revolver was on the rug beside him. There were two windows in the room, both closed. Another door opened into a bedroom, and Merker crossed and glanced into it. Two windows there—both closed and locked. Beyond was a tiny kitchenette, and a glance told the detective that it had not been used for some time. The bath opened off the bedroom, too, and had only one window, with a steel frame of bars across it.

Merker grunted and walked back to the body. He knelt beside it and turned it so that he could see the victim's face

“Gosh!” he grunted.

He sprang to his feet and, darting to the door, called down the stairs to the patrolman.

“Come up here! And tell those people to stay outside!”

The patrolman shouted the order and pounded up the stairs, to follow Merker into the room.

“Did you take a look at him?” Merker asked.

“Yes—to make sure that it was a coroner's case instead of a case for the hospital.”

“Know him?”

“No; but his features seemed familiar.”

“I should think so,” Merker grunted. “Our victim is Grover Gadlan, the famous criminal lawyer.”

“The one that—that——”

“The one who handled the famous Granburg murder case—yes! Send for the coroner and report to headquarters right away. I'll get busy here!”

The patrolman thumped down the stairs and hurried for a telephone. Detective Merker knelt beside the body again and made a better examination. He saw at a glance that a single bullet had been fired, and that it had pierced the heart. He picked up the revolver beside the body, handling it carefully, so as to keep from destroying any finger prints that might be upon it. Finally he put the weapon on the table room and began walking around the once more, inspecting everything with great care.

Grover Gadlan! Why had the famous criminal lawyer leased this small apartment in a poor section of the city when everybody knew that he had a gorgeous, large apartment far uptown? Grover Gadlan was a man of means. His home uptown was filled with expensive objects of art. And he did not have the name of being eccentric.

“May be a case of interest, after all,” Merker remarked.

Besides the law books and legal-looking documents, which were on the table, there were also some scraps of paper scattered about the floor, as though a collapsing man had pulled them from the table as he had fallen. Merker examined them briefly and found that they were filled with notations concerning some legal case. It appeared on the face of things that the attorney had been at work in this room, preparing for some trial.

Merker walked to the head of the stairs again and ordered the janitor to come up. He did not take him into the room, but questioned him at the end of the hall, where he was in a position to order any curious person away.

“See or hear anything unusual around here?” Merker asked. “Is this the only apartment?”

“There is a small one at the end of the hall, but it is not rented at present,” the janitor said.

“Locked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Back entrance?”

“No, sir. This stairway is the only entrance to the second floor, and all the windows at the rear are barred.”

“Where were you?”

“Sitting down in the doorway, sir. I was smoking my——”

“When did you see this man who called himself Jones—see him last, I mean?”

“He came in about noon, sir. He spoke to me and hurried up to the apartment. He was peculiar in a way, sir; wasn't in the apartment much. Sometimes he wouldn't come near for three or four days, and I don't believe he slept here more than three or four times in the month. An old woman cleans the rooms, sir, and she was telling me the other day that it was an easy job.”

“Came in about noon, did he? Act peculiar?”

“No, sir, not more than usual.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why, sir, he always was peculiar, in a way. He seemed to be awfully serious-minded, like as if he had some trouble in his life. I—I used to think that he looked frightened. To-day he just nodded to me and went on up to his apartment.”

“You remained sitting at the door?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anybody else come in?” Detective Merker asked.

“One gentleman, sir.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It was about a quarter after one o'clock, sir. In the first place, the tenant came down about twelve-thirty and went to the drug store on the corner. I saw him go in and come out again. He came right back and went up the stairs. Then, about a quarter after one, the other gentleman came. He had a little bag, like a doctor uses.”

“Walk in from the street?”

“No, sir. He drove up in a big roadster and left it at the curb.”

“Didn't happen to notice the number on the roadster, did you?”

“No, sir,” answered the janitor. “I didn't pay much attention. The gentleman went right past me and hurried up the stairs. He knocked on the door, and I heard the tenant call for him to come in.”

“Sure you heard him call?”

“Sure, sir.”

“Go on with your story,” Merker said. “And don't forget anything while you're telling it.”

“The gentleman was in there about fifteen minutes, sir—no longer. I thought that I heard high words once, but wasn't sure. Then the gentleman hurried down the stairs again. He seemed to be very angry. There was a terrible look in his face. He pushed people out of the way, got in the roadster and started the engine, and dashed down the street at an awful speed, sir.”

“And you remained right in the chair by the door?”

“I got up and walked out to the curb and looked after him, sir, and I think I talked for a minute or two to one of the men standing there. Then I came back and sat down. I was here until I went up to get the broom from the closet, and then I saw the tenant on the floor and found that he dead.”

“What sort of a gentleman was it that called on him—the one who carried a bag like a doctor's?” Merker asked.

“A middle-aged man, sir, very prosperous looking, I should say. He looked more like a doctor than anything else. He was dressed in a dark suit, wore a soft hat and black shoes. He had a mustache, sir, and his hair was just turning gray at the temples. That's about all that I noticed.”

“Well, that will do for the present,” Merker told him. “Go back to the door, and don't talk to any of that crowd.”

“I'll not, sir.”

Merker watched the janitor go back down the stairs, and then he entered the room of tragedy again. He walked over to the table and picked up the revolver, and once more he examined it.

The weapon was of standard pattern, except that the mountings were of silver. The barrel was of highly polished nickle, and not dark and dulled. It evidently was a weapon that had been made to order for presentation. On the barrel was engraved: “To R. S., M. D.”

“Um!” Detective Merker grunted. He wrapped the revolver carefully in a sheet of tissue paper he found on the table, and then in heavy wrapping paper, and slipped it into one of his pockets. Then he went to the door again and stood looking down the hall, awaiting the arrival of the coroner's assistant.

Merker guessed that the revolver was the property of a Doctor Richard Sloane. He knew that Sloane and Grover Gadlan were enemies. They had been enemies for years, and the Granburg murder case had been the culmination of their hatred. Sloane had been a witness for the prosecution, and his testimony had wrecked the defense that Gadlan, the famous criminal lawyer, had prepared. Gadlan had even attacked Sloane in open court, and had received a heavy fine for contempt.

“I'm not jumping to conclusions,” Merker told himself, “but it appears to me that Doctor Richard Sloane will be compelled to answer a few pointed questions before the day is much older. Have to go about it carefully and be sure of my ground, of course. Sloane is some big man—and so was Grover Gadlan!”

He turned and glanced at Gadlan's body again, noted the position it occupied, and gazed once more around the room to be sure that he had overlooked nothing. He examined the papers on the table, every scrap, but found nothing except notations such as a lawyer might make while preparing a case.

The great puzzle Merker faced at present was how Grover Gadlan happened to be here at all, and passing under the name of Jones. It was evident on the face of things that Gadlan did some work here, and did not maintain the apartment merely as a rendezvous of some sort.

Steps were heard on the stairs, and the coroner's assistant and a physician came up. Merker knew them both and waved a hand in greeting.

“A puzzle,” he announced, in a low voice. “I've had a patrolman report to headquarters, but haven't received any orders yet. The victim is a prominent man.”

The doctor and the coroner's assistant looked at the face of the dead man and gasped.

“Make your investigation and get the body away, and then I'll have a guard put over the 0the apartment,” Merker said. “There are some peculiar features about this case. Gadlan had been going under the name of Jones here; he leased the apartment and has been in it about a month. There are law books and papers, as though he had been working.”

“Murder of suicide?” the coroner's assistant asked.

“Haven't decided. Looks like murder.”

“Find the gun?”

“Got it in my pocket,” Merker answered, “I'll communicate with the coroner this evening about the inquest. I may need some time. The gun points to a clew, but you never can tell about such things.”

The physician concluded his examination and stepped back to them, polishing his spectacles.

“One shot, straight through the heart,” he reported. “Death was instantaneous.”

“Get the bullet at the undertaking establishment,” Merker instructed. “I'll telephone to learn its caliber, though I imagine that I know it.”

“I'll attend to it as soon as possible,” the physician said.

“And I'll have the body moved at once,” added the coroner's assistant.

“All right. As I go out I'll have a guard sent in.”

Merker met his captain and a policeman at the bottom of the stairs, and explained the case to them rapidly. The policeman was assigned to guard duty, and Merker and the captain scattered the crowd and walked down the street.

“Need any help?” the captain asked. As a usual thing, Merker had pretty much his own way in homicide cases. He seldom failed to solve a puzzling one.

“Not at present,” the detective replied.

“Got an idea?”

“Yes. Don't like to talk about it yet, though. I'll report later.”

“Take your time, Merker, and get to the bottom of it. Grover Gadlan had a lot of enemies, you know. He was a criminal lawyer, and he had a nasty tongue. I've heard men growling threats after he got through grilling them on cross-examination.”

“I know.”

“Or, it may have been some crook he has defended—a row over money matters. Go to it hard, Merker.”

The captain got into his automobile, which had been left at the nearest corner, and Merker walked on down the street. He walked for several blocks, thinking of the case, trying to plan so as to avoid mistakes that might come through haste.

Doctor Richard Sloane, he knew, was a prominent member of a certain exclusive club, and generally ate luncheon there. Merker directed his steps toward the club and presently came to it and entered.

Merker knew the clerk there well, and most of the employees. He made it his business to know such persons and to be on friendly terms with them. And so the clerk greeted him cordially, and willingly stepped aside when Merker indicated that he wished to hold a private conversation.

“Just checking up on something,” said Merker. He knew that the news of the tragedy had not reached the club yet. “I don't want you to say anything about our talk——”

“I'm wise, Merker.”

“Doctor Richard Sloane here for lunch to-day?”

“As usual,” said the clerk. “He generally comes in at a certain hour, sits at the same table, and leaves at the same time. That man runs by the clock and a schedule. Maybe that is one of the reasons for his success.”

“Possibly. Was he on time to-day?”

“Yes—got here about one o'clock.”

“What time did he leave?”

“Not as usual, Merker.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“He sat down and ordered his luncheon and began eating. I think he received a telephone call. I saw him go into the booth, and when he came out he called for his check, signed it, got his hat, and hurried out to his machine. I watched him through the window; saw him drive away.”

“What time?”

“About ten minutes after one, I think, He hadn't been in the club more than ten minutes altogether.”

Merker thought rapidly. He judged that a man in a hurry could drive a powerful roadster from the club to the place where Gadlan had met death in about ten minutes. The janitor had said the unknown man had arrived to visit Gadlan about a quarter after one; either the janitor or the clerk might have made a mistake of five minutes.

“Seen him since?” Merker asked.

“No, I haven't.”

“Can you find out for me whether he received a telephone call or went into the booth to call a number himself?”

“Easily,” the clerk said.

He turned back into the office and consulted the man at the switchboard and the captain of the bell boys. Almost immediately he was beside Merker again.

“He received a call from outside at three minutes after one,” the clerk reported. “He was paged, and the boy found him in the dining room. We can't tell where the call came from, of course.”

“Thanks for what you have told me,” Merker said.

“I trust that Doctor Richard Sloane hasn't been cutting up,” the clerk said, grinning. “He's rather sedate, you know.”

“Just what sort of a man is he?” the detective asked.

“Solid, respectable, serious-minded—that sort. Pillar of society, you know.”

“Quarrelsome?”

“Good heavens, no. He is heavy on the dignity stuff, but he's got a warm heart. I know of several little kindnesses he has done. He's got a beauty of a wife, a son about seventeen, and a girl a couple of years younger. Great doctor, too—dandy surgeon. The only fuss he ever had that I know of was with Grover Gadlan, the lawyer.”

“What was that?” Merker asked.

“I don't know how it started, but they always seemed to be enemies,” the clerk replied. “The board of directors warned Gadlan once that he would have to curb his animosity while in the club. He used to sneer and snarl every time he caught sight of the doctor. The other members were careful to keep from getting them at the same card table, and things like that.”

“I understand.”

“Then they had that trouble at the time of the Granburg murder trial. The doctor's testimony wrecked the lawyer's case, and as he left the stand Gadlan made a jump for him.”

“I saw that,” Merker replied. “Gadlan got fined for contempt.”

“Since then they've not even nodded to each other here at the club when they happened to meet. And I think Gadlan was afraid of the doctor, at that.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He was hinting around all the time that he was afraid he was going to be murdered some day. He didn't mention any names, but everybody knew he meant Doctor Sloane. He had an idea that he was being watched. He told a couple of members one day at luncheon that he had a private apartment somewhere in town, where he went to study tough cases; said sometimes he was afraid to stay in his rooms uptown, that he had a hunch trouble was coming.”

“Peculiar,” Merker remarked.

“They made fun of him, of course, but it seemed to be serious enough to him.”

“It was serious, all right,” Merker informed him. “You would learn it in a short time anyway, when the extras come out. Grover Gadlan was found dead about two o'clock, in a little apartment downtown. He was shot.”

“Good heavens!” the clerk gasped, his eyes bulging. “And—and you think that Doctor Sloane——”

“I'm not thinking aloud,” Detective Merker reminded him, speaking in a sharp voice. “And I'll thank you to forget our little conversation, except the part about Grover Gadlan being dead.”

“I—of course I'll forget it, Merker. I'm wise. Gadlan dead, eh? The best criminal lawyer in the State!”

“I guess he was, at that—and one of the best in the country,” Merker said. “Leaving the doctor out of it, did other men seem to like Gadlan?”

“Yes. He appeared to be very popular. Both Gadlan and Doctor Sloane were popular with the same men, and everybody thought it was a shame that they couldn't get along together. There must have been some ancient grudge.”

“Well, I can't spend. all my time with you,” said Merker. “Thanks for answering my questions—and remember to forget all about them. Now I'll get out and let you announce Gadlan's death to the men in the club. I can see that you're dying to do it.”

“Think of it! Gadlin—murdered!”

“Where did you learn that?”

“Why, you said——”

“I said that Gadlan had been found dead, and that he had been shot,” Merker told him sternly. “I did not say that he had been murdered, did I? You'd better not quote me at all.”

As the clerk hurried away to spread news of the tragedy through the club Detective Jim Merker went into one of the telephone booths and called police headquarters.

He asked that the finger-print expert be instructed to go to the mortuary and take the prints of Grover Gadlan's dead fingers. And then Merker left the club and hurried down the street, walked rapidly toward the building where Doctor Richard Sloane had his offices.

CHAPTER II.
Doctor Sloane's Story.

MERKER had a peculiar feeling about this case. It seemed too easy of solution. The revolver, if it was Doctor Sloane's, was a bit of damaging evidence. The old janitor could identify the man who had visited the apartment of Grover Gadlan and who later had rushed away as though frightened or horrified.

Sloane's quarrel with Gadlan was well known. Gadlan had been acting as though afraid for his life. The facts seemed to fit perfectly, and Merker did not like cases where the facts fitted too perfectly. Either this was one of those cases with a quick solution to be followed by admission and a plea of self-defense, or it would prove to be a stubborn case with new developments continually bothering the police and the prosecuting attorneys.

Jim Merker did not have the appearance of the conventional detective. He was a large man, and strong, but he did not possess the huge, flat feet plain-clothes men and police detectives are supposed to have. Merker looked like an ordinary, middle-aged business man of sound common sense and good judgment.

He went up in the elevator and got off at the proper floor, entered the reception room of the suite of Doctor Richard Sloane—and found himself alone. There were no patients waiting, no attendant was sitting at the desk in the corner, but voices came from the consultation room.

Jim Merker, hat in hand, walked slowly around the room as he waited for attention. On a table in one corner were half a dozen kodak snapshots of Doctor Richard Sloane, left there as though somebody had been looking at them and had tossed them aside carelessly. Merker glanced at them swiftly and selected one that showed the doctor, his hat on, standing at the curb beside his roadster. He slipped the picture into his pocket and walked the length of the room and sat down.

Presently a young woman attendant emerged from the consultation room, followed by a messenger boy who carried a small package, to whom the girl had been giving orders.

“You are to get the prescription filled, and then deliver it to that address, together with the other package,” she was saying now. “And please move with a certain amount of speed. There is a mighty sick woman waiting for that medicine.”

The boy grinned and made a quick exit to the corridor, and the young woman faced Merker haughtily, her eyebrows lifted, the expression on her face saying plainly that she felt her own importance at the present moment and doubted whether such a person as Jim Merker could have business in the office.

“You wished to see——” she asked, leaving a blank at the end of the sentence, her manner imperious.

“Doctor Sloane, please,” Merker replied, restraining a grin with great difficulty.

“The doctor isn't in.

“Be in soon?”

“No more to-day!”

“Um!” Jim Merker grunted. “I thought that his office hours were from two to five in the afternoon. That's what the sign on the door says.”

“The doctor is engaged elsewhere,” the young woman attendant declared. “If you'd like to make an appointment for to-morrow——”

Jim Merker suddenly became professional and exhibited his shield of authority.

“I don't want to bother the doctor—or you, young woman—unnecessarily,” he said blandly, “but it is imperative that I locate Doctor Sloane as soon as possible.”

“He went out to lunch at the usual time, and he has not returned,” the girl explained. “About half an hour ago I received a telephone message from him telling me to send a certain prescription to a patient by messenger. He said that he would not be in the office any more to-day. Possibly he has an emergency operation.”

“You don't know where he was when he telephoned?”

“He did not say,” the girl replied.

“Very well—and thank you,” Merker said. “I'll catch him somewhere later.”

Merker left the office and went down to the street again, engaged a taxicab, and returned to the scene of Grover Gadlan's death. The crowd was gone now; the momentary shock of violent death was over. Denizens of that section of the city had been jarred out of their personal ruts for an instant, but now they were back at work on the treadmill of life.

The patrolman was on guard in the apartment, and the ancient janitor sat before the doorway, puffing at his pipe and dreaming in the sun. The tragedy did not seem to have impressed him much. Jim Merker took the kodak picture out of his pocket and showed it to the old man.

“Know this fellow?' he asked.

The janitor adjusted his spectacles and gave the photograph a single glance.

“That's him!” he exclaimed, exhibiting some excitement. “That's the man as visited Mr. Jones a bit before I found the body on the floor of his room.”

“Sure of it?” Merker demanded.

“Yes, sir, I'm sure of it. Why, I'd know him among a thousand, sir! He has even got on the same kind of hat and clothes. That picture must have been taken quite recent, sir. It's him, all right.”

“Thanks,” Detective Merker said, returning the photograph to his pocket. “Anything new around here?”

“The police scattered the crowd, sir, and there's nothing new except that officer in the apartment upstairs. He's just sittin' there on guard and smokin' and tryin' to read a newspaper, and growlin' about bein' picked for the job.”

Detective Merker did not seek to prolong the conversation. The janitor had identified the photograph of Doctor Richard Sloane, and that was all that Jim Merker wished at the present time. He got into the taxicab again and gave the chauffeur an address that was only a block from Doctor Sloane's residence.

His destination reached, Merker paid the chauffeur and walked up the street slowly. Some distance from the house he stopped beside the stone fence around the property adjoining, made a pretense of lighting a cigar, and calmly observed the property of the man he suspected of slaying Grover Gadlan.

Doctor Sloane's roadster, he saw, was standing beside the house in the drive way. There did not seem to be any life around the place. At least, there was no evidence of undue excitement.

Merker heard a cough behind him and turned to see a gardener surveying him over the wall.

“Howdy?” the gardener said. “I see your lookin' at the Sloane place. I wonder if there's some trouble over there.”

“I don't know,” Merker replied. “Why?”

“Well, the doctor come chargin' home in that machine of his about two o'clock, runnin' up the avenue like a fire engine. He dashed into the house, and he dashed out again and ran over to the Langley's, across the street. He got his young daughter, and he dashed back, and I ain't seen anybody come out of the house since. I just wondered if somebody was sick, or somethin'.”

“Don't know, I'm sure,” Merker said. “I don't know the doctor very well. What kind of a man is he?”

“Fine man,” the gardener replied. “Good doctor, too, I've heard tell. Makes a lot of money, I reckon.”

Merker walked on up the street, and the inquisitive gardener returned to his labor. So Doctor Richard Sloane had come home at an unusual hour and in a state of great excitement, had he? Merker wondered for an instant if the doctor was preparing to take his family on an unexpected journey. If so, Jim Merker was there to prevent anything like that.

He walked up to the front door of the Sloane residence and rang. Sloane, he knew, had a small office in his house also, for he had a number of patients in this exclusive section of the city and did not compel them to visit him at his office downtown.

A maid answered his ring, and he said that he wished to see the doctor. The maid disappeared, but returned almost immediately and ushered Merker into the little office.

Doctor Richard Sloane was sitting before his desk, beneath a shaded lamp. As Merker entered he put aside a medical journal he evidently had been perusing, and adjusted his spectacles.

“Detective Merker, isn't it?” the doctor asked. “I remember being a witness in a case with you. Sit down. What can I do for you, Merker? That splendid body of yours hasn't been acting up, has it?”

“This is a professional visit all right, doctor, but my profession and not yours,” Merker responded. “I just want to ask you a few questions, Doctor Sloane. You need not answer unless you desire to do so, of course. That is up to you.”

“I understand. But I don't know why I shouldn't answer, I'm sure. What is it that you wish to know?”

Doctor Richard Sloane spoke calmly enough, but Merker sensed that fear was tugging at the physician's heart, and that he seemed to feel a sort of premonition, The doctor seemed to see that there was something deadly professional about the detective's manner.

“I'll get right down to the point and save time,” Jim Merker said. “You know Grover Gadlan, the attorney, of course?”

“I have known him for years.”

“You have had trouble with him, haven't you?”

“We have been enemies since our college days,” Doctor Sloane admitted. “The whole town knows that.”

“So I have been told,” Merker said. “Now I am going to tell you a few things, doctor, and then I'll listen if you have anything to say—if you wish to talk.”

“Very well.”

“Grover Gadlan has been hinting around for some time that he is afraid of you. He obtained a permit to carry a revolver, and he engaged rooms in another part of the city, giving out that he wanted to have a place where he could study and prepare his cases—that he was afraid you were going to do for him.”

“Why, that is ridiculous!”

“Wait until I have finished, please.”

“Very well.”

“The fact that you two have been enemies for some time is well known, of course. I don't know how it started, and that doesn't make any difference now. To-day, shortly after one o'clock, you were at your club for luncheon. You received a telephone message and rushed away as though on an emergency call.”

“That is true,” Doctor Sloane said.

“You went to the building where Grover Gadlan had rented a small apartment, and you went up the stairs and into his rooms. A short time later you dashed out of that apartment, hurried down the stairs to the street, sprang into your automobile, and drove away like mad. Within an hour the police were called to that place. Grover Gadlan had been found on the floor—dead!”

“Dead!” Doctor Sloane exclaimed.

“Killed—shot,” Detective Jim Merker explained, watching the physician closely.

“But——”

“Listen to the rest, please, and then talk, if you feel like it. There was an immediate investigation, of course. I have charge of the case. The body was removed by the coroner's assistant. The circumstances point to murder. Grover Gadlan had his own revolver in his hip pocket, and it had not been fired. The weapon from which the fatal shot had been fired was on the floor beside the body, evidently dropped there by the horrified murderer. I have that gun in my possession, Doctor Sloane.”

“Well?” Doctor Sloane spoke thickly, as though a terrible fear was gripping him.

“Here is the gun, Doctor Sloane. I want you to tell me whether you ever have seen it before.”

Detective Merker took the gun from his pocket, unwrapped it, and put it carefully on the desk before the physician. Doctor Sloane's eyes bulged, and then he tore open a drawer in the lower part of his desk and pawed around among the things in it.

“That—that gun is mine!” he explained, gasping.

“That is a bad confession for you to make, Doctor Sloane,” the detective remarked,

“Surely you—you do not think that I did it?”

“What else am I to think?” Jim Merker asked. “Grover Gadlan was an ancient enemy of yours. You rush into his apartment—the one that he had been trying to keep a secret—and a short time later you rush out again, like a maniac, wild-eyed, and you drive away like a criminal getting from the scene of his crime. Gadlan is found dead—and a revolver belonging to you is found beside his body. The old man who acts as janitor there saw you enter and leave, and he is pretty sure that you are the only man who went into Gadlan's apartment.”

“But, I—I——” Sloane stammered.

“There can be no question of an alibi. You were there. And your revolver was found there, beside Gadlan's body. You need not talk, Doctor Sloane, unless you wish.”

“But I—I am willing to talk. I want to talk!” the physician cried. “I was called there—found Gadlan when I arrived. He sneered at me and taunted me—said that he would disgrace me before he was done. I rushed away and left him standing there beside the table. I hurried away because I did not want any trouble with him——”

“That is a pretty thin reason, doctor,” the detective said.

“I—I'll tell everything from the beginning, and then you will believe me!” Doctor Sloane cried, sitting forward in his chair. “I'll go back to college days.”

“Anything you say——”

“May be used against me. I know. But I want to talk. I want you to understand.”

“Very well,” Merker said.

“Grover Gadlan had a hatred for me, that transcended every other emotion of which he was capable. It burned in his heart like a white-hot flame—destroying pity, sympathy, love, friendship, horror, even fear.

“In his college days Grover Gadlan seemed a likeable chap. He was the favorite of a select coterie neither too low nor too fast. He made normal progress in his studies, and at the same time went in for athletics and everything else that was imbued with the proper college spirit.

“I was a classmate of Gadlan's, but I had not known him before I went to college. At first we were friends. Our natures appeared to be congenial in everything. We did not room together, but Grover Gadlan was in my company more than in that of his room-mate. The undergraduates began calling us Damon and Pythias. We went into our sophomore year firm friends—and we came out of it enemies for life!

“Gadlan discovered, early in his sophomore year, that he was the type of man who eternally runs in second place. In everything he was good, but not quite good enough to be a leader. He always missed the goal he sought by a scant margin, while some other man attained it easily.

“The bitterness of failure began to enter his soul, and instead of attempting to analyze and correct his habit of failure he nursed the bitterness he felt, nurtured it until it almost consumed him. Then began his great hatred of me, the man he had called his close friend, and through no fault of my own.

“We were both candidates for the presidency of our class, and I won the position with only two votes to spare. Gadlan shook hands with me after the election and accepted a place I made for him on one of the most prominent committees. We both tried for the football team. The big game of the season approached with the uncertainty whether Gadlan or myself would be put in at left half. The coach finally decided in my favor. In the last period of the game—a contest with a rival college we particularly disliked—I was fortunate enough to make the winning touchdown, and I was carried in triumph around the field. Was that my fault? Gadlan did not offer his congratulations that time. He went to his room and sulked.

“In our junior year I was fortunate to take certain honors in academic work, with Gadlan a very close second. Gadlan always seemed to be a close second in everything, which made it a great deal worse. It would not have been so bad had I distanced him greatly, or had other men outpointed him now and then.

“Of course, we had ceased to be friends, and scarcely were civil when we met. Gadlan's attitude caused me to indulge in a certain measure of hatred myself, but I tried to content myself with ignoring him.

“In our senior year we were open rivals in everything, and it seemed that I always got the better of it. Gadlan's hatred became a thing terrible to see. There seemed to be some great and influential power sweeping us toward destruction. We did not want to hate each other, but we did.

“During our senior year a girl appeared upon the scene. Her name was Madalene. It seemed inevitable that a woman should bring about the climax. She was an attractive girl with a great deal of common sense, and dozens of men were attentive to her, but she seemed to prefer Gadlan and myself.

“She was only a freshman, and we were seniors, and she would listen to no talk of love or marriage then. She granted her favors impartially at first, and neither Gadlan nor myself had reason to be morose. Our plans already had been made for the time following commencement. I intended to study medicine, and Gadlan was going in for law.

“In a way, I suppose that our enmity was a spur to our ambitions, for we both were determined to reach the top of our particular professional ladders. I took honors in medicine, and Grover Gadlan attracted considerable attention in the law school. Having fully prepared ourselves, we both opened offices in this city and began our careers. We were not rivals professionally, and our hatred might have remained dormant, but for Madalene.

“She, too, lived in this city, and at the end of her college days she took her place in a select society noted for its culture and refinement rather than for wealth and display. Seeking her, Grover Gadlan and I met often, of course, and we both became favorites in the select circle.

“Madalene refused to choose between us, apparently not being certain yet of her own heart, and so our rivalry continued. Then she made her choice, and I was the fortunate man. Grover Gadlan disappeared for six months, and then returned to the city and resumed the practice of his profession. He avoided me and my wife as much as possible.

“Affairs continued in this state. I am now past forty, and Gadlan was also. I have two children, a boy of seventeen and a girl two years younger. I believe I may say honestly that I have succeeded in my profession, and we both know that Gadlan did the same. He became to be looked upon as one of the foremost criminal lawyers in the State.

“Then came the famous Granburg murder case, wherein Grover Gadlan was engaged as principal attorney for the defense, receiving a fabulous retainer. The newspapers were filled with the sensation of the affair, and men and women fought at the doors of the courtroom to get inside when the trial began.

“As you know, it was a typical case where the scion of a family of wealth was accused of a capital crime, with surprises and scandals fresh every hour. Gadlan became well known throughout the country because he had charge of the defense. The case marked the high tide in his career.

“Of course, Gadlan fought bitterly from the start, and nine tenths of those following the case closely became convinced that he would get his client free, or at least save him from the electric chair, And then, at the crucial moment, I was served with a subpoena, called by the prosecution.

“I could not help it, could I? I was obliged to answer what was asked. Gadlan sneered at me as I was sworn in, and he listened carefully while the district attorney got me on record regarding things that were damaging to the, defense. Gadlan took charge of the cross-examination himself. He conducted it in such a way that the court admonished him repeatedly to proceed in a proper manner. And I supposed that the sense of failure claimed him again, as it had so often in his college days, and he held me to blame for it.

“He could not break down my testimony, which was purely technical, You can appreciate what I was enduring. He sneered at me, hurled questions at me that were discourteous, to say the least. Then he attempted to attack my professional standing, tried to impeach me, did everything possible to discredit me in the eyes of the jury and the world—and failed.

“As I stepped down from the witness stand, Gadlan, knowing that he had lost his great case, went wild, and attacked me in open court. A heavy fine for contempt was the result. He lost the case, and was furious. For weeks he acted like a maniac when my name was mentioned. Then came a physical breakdown, and he went away for a time, traveling for his health. Since his return, I have not spoken to him, until to-day.”

“And what about to-day?” Detective Jim Merker asked. “I must warn you again that you need not speak unless you desire to do so.”

“I want to tell it all,” Doctor Sloane replied. “I went to the club at the usual hour to-day for luncheon. I was called to the telephone. A man's voice told me that he was Doctor James R. Gordon, and that he wanted me immediately for a consultation—a matter of life or death. I agreed to go to him at once, and he gave me the address, told me it was a little apartment at the head of a flight of stairs, and for me to hurry as fast as I could.

“I left my luncheon and drove there immediately, hurried up the stairs, and knocked at the door.

“Come in,” a voice called.

“I stepped inside the room and closed the door behind me. There was a man sitting before the table, bent forward. I could not see his face.

“I beg your pardon?' I said.

“He whirled around in his chair to face me. It was Grover Gadlan. He leered at me. I took a step backward. He was the last man in the world I had expected to find there. It flashed over me that he, too, had been called in a professional capacity—to make a will or something. I glanced around, seeking Doctor Gordon and the sick man.

“'I received a call,' I said.

“'That's all right. I sent that telephone message,' Gadlan told me. 'Disguised my voice well, didn't I? Sit down!'

“His voice was calm enough, but there was a peculiar note in it. His eyes seemed to be blazing and did not flinch before mine when I regarded him.

“'I think that we can have nothing to say to each other,' I told him.

“'I assumed that you were a physician, and that your profession had certain ethics, as mine has,' he replied.

“'Well?' I asked.

“'I have called you, and you have responded.'

“'If you are ill,' I told him, 'you perhaps have a regular doctor you can call.'

“'But possibly I do not have faith in him, and wish to consult you,' he replied. 'Sit down!'

“There was something like a challenge in his manner, and I did not care to play the coward, so I sat down in the chair nearest me. Our eyes clashed again, and Gadlan repeated his sneer.

“'Well?' I asked. I admit that I was feeling a bit nervous. The scene was something of an ordeal for me.

“'We have been enemies for a good many years, haven't we, Sloane?' he said.

“'I think it is useless for us to discuss that,' I replied.

“'But suppose I just happen to feel like discussing it?' he said.

“'Then I shall take my leave,' I told him. 'You have decoyed me here. I suppose that you have some cowardly purpose——'

“'Nobody ever accused me of being a coward, and I do not relish the accusation now,' he said.

“'Then tell me what you wish with me,' I commanded.

“Grover Gadlan got up and leaned against the table, his arms folded across his breast, and looked down at me.

“'You have got the better of me times without number,' he said. 'Your life has been spent in defeating me.'

“'Gadlan, I never have gone out of my way to do so,' I replied.

“'Nevertheless, the fact remains that you always have defeated me whenever we have met,' he went on. 'But there is an old saying that he who laughs last laughs best.'

“'What do you mean?' I demanded.

“'I mean that I am going to have the last laugh, Richard Sloane,' he told me. 'I am going to conquer you in the end. Do you know what is going to happen to you?'

“'Do you mean that you have decoyed me here to kill me?' I asked. I was a bit afraid, because he was acting so strangely, and I did not have a weapon with me. Physically, Gadlan Was more than a match for me, too.

“'Oh, no!' he replied, laughing peculiarly. 'I expect to die before you, Sloane. Rest your mind on that point. Killing you would be too easy, and it scarcely would be refined. I prefer refined torture in your case. And, if I killed you, they might send me to the chair for it, you see. I'd hate to be executed just for killing you.'

“'Then——'

“'I am going to torture you, Richard Sloane!' he told me. 'I am going to tear out your heart a bit at a time. I am going to make you a thing loathed and despised and avoided. Your name will be a synonym for disgrace!'

“'If you are trying to frighten me, your work is futile,' I told him.

“'It is not futile, though you do not realize it yet,' he replied. 'Fright will come within a few hours, and then horror, and then despair. You will find yourself in a net from which you cannot escape.'

“'What do you mean?' I asked.

“'I mean that at last I have found the way to conquer you,' he said. 'It will cost me something, though not much. You love your wife——'

“'I do not care to have you mention her name,' I told him, with some anger.

“'Everybody will be mentioning it before many days,' he said. 'The sob sisters of the newspapers will be trying to get interviews with her. They will be stealing her photographs to reproduce them in their papers—the wife of Doctor Richard Sloane! And your children——'

“'What do you mean, Gadlan?' I cried.

“'Don't you wish that you knew?' he said. 'Well, you'll know soon enough! Let me see—your son is seventeen, isn't he? And your girl is just fifteen. They'll know what I mean within a few days—yes, they will know. Disgrace—ruin—they'll appreciate the terms for the first time in their lives.'

“'Are you insane?' I cried.

“'No; but before another week has passed you'll wish that you were; you'll wish your mind was a blank. So you'd not know what was going on,' he replied. 'You cannot conceive the horror in store for you, Richard Sloane—and when you are feeling it at its greatest, remember me, and remember also that I caused it all—that I finally conquered!'

“'You fiend!' I cried.

“Gadlan laughed like one as he looked down at me. 'Commencing to grow curious, are you?' he asked, sneering again. 'Well, I'll not gratify your curiosity—yet. You'll know all about it soon enough, Your son, eh? He will be hanging his head in shame, be afraid to face his friends. Your wife will die from the disgrace. And your daughter——'

“'If you mean harm to her——' I began.

“'That touches you, does it?' he said. 'She looks like her mother, doesn't she? I have understood so. She'll know the depths of shame and disgrace, all right. Her entire life will be ruined, as mine has been.'

“'You have ruined your own life with your blind hatred,' I told him.

“'You think so?' he asked. 'It will be as nothing compared to the ruin of yours and your family.'

“I could endure it no longer. I sprang from my chair and confronted him.

“'What do you mean by this conversation?' I demanded. 'I have had enough of your idle threats.'

“'I'd advise you not to attempt to attack me,' he said.

“'Is that your game?' I demanded. 'Do you want to anger me so I'll attack you, then kill me and plead self-defense?'

“'Oh, you haven't guessed it yet, Sloane,' he replied. 'And you'll never guess it. It is something so unusual, you see. But when you do know it will come over you like a flash. You'll realize the solution but that will not help you. For no man will believe you if you tell the truth. They'll tell you that you lie, that you are attempting a poor subterfuge.'

“'In Heaven's name, what do you mean?' I cried.

“'You'll be calling on Heaven a great many times within the next few weeks, Sloane,' he told me. 'And you'll think of me—yes, you'll think of me! Your wife—your son—your daughter—— It will be especially hard for your daughter.'

“I was terribly excited by that time. Gadlan stepped forward and looked me straight in the eyes once more.

“'Look at me!' he commanded. 'Can't you see the hate burning in my eyes? That is what I want you to remember, Sloane. And now I think that you'd better go. I've held you here long enough. The work has been done!'

“'What work?' I asked.

“'You'll know soon, Richard Sloane,' he told me, laughing peculiarly again. 'You love your daughter, do you? And do you known where she is now, whether something has happened to her?'

“He laughed at me again, and a thousand horrible thoughts flashed through my mind. Had Gadlan decoyed me there so that nobody would know where I was and I could not be located quickly by telephone? Had he engaged some of the criminals he had defended in court to harm my girl in some way?

“I was horribly afraid. I whirled toward the door without another word to him, tore it open, and rushed down the hall. I plunged through the crowd, sprang into my roadster, and drove like a maniac down the busy street.

“Now I was almost frantic. I knew the nature of Grover Gadlan well, and feared the worst. I knew that Gadlan had decoyed me to that apartment for some sinister reason, and I was frightened because I could not guess at the solution of the puzzle.

“But it was not for myself that I was frightened. I feared for my wife, my son, and daughter. I suppose I might have telephoned home, but I did not think of that. I thought only of getting here as fast as gasoline and tires could carry me.

“I stopped outside at the curb with brakes screeching, vaulted out of the car, and hurried up the steps to the front door. I burst in without ringing the bell. A maid, terrified at my sudden entrance, turned white of face and gasped, and I thought that she was terrified by some tragedy. I asked for my wife.

“'In the office, sir,' said the maid.

“I did not wait to hear any more. I dashed into this room. My wife was here, putting those fresh roses in that vase on my desk. She looked up at me and smiled.

“'What is the matter?' she gasped.

“'Thank Heaven that you are all right!' I cried.

“'Why shouldn't I be all right?' she questioned. 'What has happened, Richard? You are frightening me.'

“'Where is the boy?' I asked.

“'In his room above, studying,' she replied.

“'And little Madalene?'

“'Spending the afternoon with girl friends,' my wife replied.

“'Where?' I asked her.

“'At the Langleys', she said.

“'Call her—quick!' I instructed.

“I suppose my manner alarmed her. She grasped the telephone and called the Langley residence. She asked for our girl, and soon turned to face me.

“'Madalene is there, and all right,' she said.

“'I want her home—at once,' I replied. 'I'll go across and get her.'

“'But she can run over.'

“'I'll go and get her,' I repeated.

“I was dreadfully afraid, you see, though I could not explain my fear. I went to the Langleys' and got her, was back with her in less than ten minutes. And then, having sent her to her room, I almost collapsed here in this chair. My wife asked me about the trouble. I told her of Gadlan calling me, of my conversation with him, and of my fear. She tried to quiet me, told me that Gadlan was just trying to frighten me, make a fool out of me. I grew calm in time—began reading. And then you came.”

Detective Jim Merker glanced around the room, and then back at the physician.

“Interesting story, but a thin one,” he announced.

“You mean that you don't believe me?”

“It isn't what I believe; it's what the jury will believe that counts,” Merker said. “I've investigated a bit before coming here. It looks bad for you, doctor.”

“It's—it's monstrous! Grover Gadlan was alive and well the last time I saw him.”

“That is your statement, of course—and on the other side I have some excellent evidence.”

“It's some sort of a trap!” Sloane cried.

“How can that be? Gadlan is dead—shot!”

“He threatened me. He said that he would see me and my family in disgrace. I didn't know what he meant. If it was this——”

“You don't suppose that Gadlan hired somebody to kill him just to have the crime fastened on you, do you?” Merker asked, sneering. “Your statements get thinner and thinner. And there is the revolver!”

“I don't know how the gun happened to be there,” Sloane declared. “I always kept it here in the drawer of my desk. I haven't seen it for some time—haven't looked for it—haven't needed it.”

“Thin!” Jim Merker commented.

“You mean—I'm to be arrested?”

“I mean that you are under arrest now, doctor—for murder in the first degree. Perhaps you'd better not talk any more until you have seen your attorney.”

A cry from the doorway startled them. The doctor's wife stood there; she had heard. Now she ran forward and knelt beside her husband, her arms around him.

“He couldn't have done such a thing!” she cried. “It's a trick to——”

“No trick! Gadlan has been killed,” Merker declared.

“But—to arrest him——”

“My duty!” Merker explained. “Ready, Sloane?”

Mrs. Sloane cried out in horror, and the maid hurried into the office. The physician seemed to be numbed. Evidently he could do nothing, think of nothing. He muttered something about it all coming out right, and motioned for the maid to lead his wife away.

“If you want to telephone your attorney——” Detective Merker suggested, with some kindness.

Richard Sloane got his lawyer by telephone, and asked him to hurry to police headquarters. Detective Jim Merker led him from the house, while a weeping woman and two frightened children watched from a window on the second floor.

CHAPTER III.
Frisco Frank.

IN the consultation room at police headquarters Doctor Rchard Sloane paced back and forth, his white face wearing an expression of despair. His attorney, sitting beside the little table in one corner of the room, watched him closely.

“I tell you that I didn't do it!” Doctor Sloane exclaimed. “I have told you the entire truth, just as I told it to that detective. For Heaven's sake, say that you believe me! I have told you everything that happened, every word that was spoken by either of us. Grover Gadlan was alive, standing beside his table in the middle of the room, when I rushed away from him.”

“I cannot understand it,” the attorney said. “I've been up there to take a look at things. It seems positive that nobody else visited Gadlan.”

“He is dead—we can't deny that—and the doctors say that he was shot. But I didn't shoot him,” Doctor Sloane insisted.

“But, the revolver

“I thought that it was in a drawer of my desk at home. I hadn't missed it. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine how it got in that room beside the body. And I cannot imagine what Gadlan meant by calling me there, and by the way he talked. He promised me disgrace, promised that my wife and children would be heart-broken. Well, he has made good his threat.”

Sloane laughed mirthlessly and began pacing the floor again. He had been in jail for four hours, and it seemed an age. His wife had called, but they had not allowed her to see him, and he had sent out word that she was to return home and care for the children.

A terrible fear clutched at Doctor Richard Sloane now. His attorney had related the evidence in a cold, matter-of-fact way attorneys have, and Sloane realized that it was damaging, almost conclusive, so far as the average jury was concerned. Against it he had nothing except the declaration that he was innocent—and he could not make anybody believe that. Even his own attorney did not seem to believe it.

“You must realize that I am speaking the truth!” Sloane cried. “I wouldn't lie to you—to my lawyer.”

“Men have done so before now, Sloane, thinking thus to convince an attorney of their innocence, so he would make a harder fight.”

“But I'm telling the truth. I never killed Grover Gadlan. He was alive when I left him.”

“We have to make a jury believe that,” the attorney said. “I'll secure assistance immediately, of course, and we'll get to work. I'll make application for bail, but it will be of no use, They won't admit you to bail in a case like this.”

“Then I have to stay here?”

“For the present.”

“I'll go insane!” Rickard Sloane cried. “I'm like a rat in a trap. I'm innocent, and held here while they get ready to slaughter——”

“We'll be working on the outside. Take it as easy as you can, doctor. I'll keep your wife informed, and try to comfort her as much as possible.”

“Like a rat in a trap!” Sloane repeated as they led him back to his cell.

His interview with the attorney had been overheard by Detective Jim Merker. It probably wasn't exactly legal or strictly ethical for Merker to listen to a conversation between attorney and client, but Merker belonged to the new order, and believed that anything was justifiable to get at the truth. He hated red tape and obstacles deliberately put in the way. His action seemed justified, in view of the end to which he was directing his energies—getting to the bottom of the affair.

Merker walked back to his captain's office and entered.

“Well?” the captain asked.

“Something funny about this case,” the detective declared.

“Don't you think Sloane did it?”

“I don't know yet,” Jim Merker confessed. “He told his lawyer that he didn't, and he spoke like a man telling the truth. If he was running a bluff on his lawyer he ran a good one.”

“And now what?” the captain asked.

“I'm going to get to the bottom of the thing.”

“Go ahead, Merker, and take plenty of time. We've got evidence enough to hold Sloane as long as we please. If he's innocent we can turn him loose later; and if he's guilty we've got him in a cell.”

Merker went to the little room occupied by the finger-print expert.

“Get prints of Gadlan's fingers?” he asked.

“Yes—good set. And I went in and took Doctor Sloane's, too.”

“He didn't object?” Merker asked.

“Not a bit.”

Merker grunted and sat down. It was difficult to tell whether the grunt expressed satisfaction or disapproval. He took from his pocket the weapon that had killed Grover Gadlan, unwrapped it, and placed it on the desk before the expert.

“Bring out the prints on that, if you can,” he instructed. “I've tried to be careful with the thing, but I had to unwrap it at Sloane's house and show it too him. You may find my prints on the barrel, too. Get busy—I'll wait!”

Merker lighted a cigar and went to stand beside a window and look down at the busy street. The finger-print expert busied himself with his work. Some time later he gave a grunt that told Merker the task was at an end.

“What results?” Merker asked.

“Plenty of prints.”

“Doctor Sloane's there?”

“Yes,”

“Where?”

“Handle and barrel.”

“Gadlan's there?” Merker asked, bending forward.

“They are—yes.

“Um!” the detective grunted. “Where?”

“On the barrel and butt both.”

“Any others?”

“Yes,” replied the expert. “There's a trace of yours at the muzzle and at the bottom of the butt, showing how you picked the gun up, and how you handled it. And there are other prints on the barrel. Maybe we can run them down, and maybe we can't. Can't tell how old they are, either. That barrel took impressions easily enough—highly polished stuff.”

“Made to order and presented to the doctor by admiring friends, I understand,” Merker said. “Show me those prints.”

The expert pointed out the ones that he had not looked up.

“I'll attend to the rest of this,” Merker said gruffly. It was his nature to be gruff when interested deeply, when anticipating something unusual.

Merker was something of a finger-print expert himself, and now he sat down and began going through the filing cases where the prints of recognized criminals were kept. He did not know whether he would find anything there or not, but it was something that he could not afford to overlook.

For more than an hour he worked. It was dark now, and the dinner hour had passed long since, but Merker did not think of food; he seldom bothered about regularity at meals when he was working on an important case.

And then, finally, long after the finger-print expert had gone home, he gave a grunt that expressed both surprise and satisfaction, got up from the desk, put away the finger-print cards, wrapped the revolver carefully, and turned it in to the property clerk, then hurried to the office of the captain, who had said that he would return after dinner.

The captain was waiting, and he looked up quickly when Merker entered.

“Anything new?” the captain asked.

“Sloane's prints are on the gun.”

“I expected that,” the captain said. “But he admits that it is his gun—says he doesn't know how it got out of his desk. Of course his prints would be on it.”

“And Gadlan's are there.”

“That doesn't help us much, either,” the captain said.

“I'm afraid that it doesn't,” Merker said. “There may have been a struggle, you know. Sloane may have pulled the gun, Gadlan may have grasped it in an effort to prevent it being fired.”

“So!” the captain said.

“And now comes the peculiar part.”

“What is that?”

“There are more prints on the gun—prints of a certain gentleman well known to the justly celebrated police.”

The captain showed sudden interest and sat up straighter in his chair.

“Whose?” he demanded.

“The prints of a gent we know as Frisco Frank.”

“Frisco Frank, eh? Um!”

The captain looked thoughtful, and Merker sat down in the chair at the end of the desk.

“Frisco Frank has been in town for about three months. I've had my eye on him,” Merker said.

“Been on his good behavior?”

“Yes. We pinched him about two years ago for burglary. Remember? He got off with eighteen months, and he was mighty lucky. Grover Gadlan defended him and got him off.”

“Um!” the captain grunted again.

“When he got out of stir he came here. Oh, he's been watched. He gave out the impression that he had reformed—didn't like the idea of spending half his life in prison.”

“How's he been spending his time, then?”

“Working,” Merker said. “Don't grin. It's the truth! I've been watching him. And I don't think he's doing it just for a stall, either. He got a job from a man who knows his history—checking up teamsters and their loads at a big brickyard. He's been on the job steady. He rents a little room in a respectable neighborhood, eats at a decent restaurant, saves some of his wages, and stays away from the old gang.”

“Something fishy about all that reform when a man like Frisco Frank does it,” the captain said.

“I don't know. He seems sincere enough.”

“But those prints——”

“I'll have to see Mr. Frisco Frank,” Merker said. “Those finger prints have to be explained, naturally. Sloane swears that he thought the gun was in his desk, and we find it in the room where Gadlan was shot. The question is, how did it get there? And Frisco Frank's finger prints are on it.”

“But the fact remains,” said the captain, “that nobody except Doctor Sloane went up to see Gadlan, according to that old janitor. Looks to me like Sloane paid off an old hate in the hottest coin.”

“I'll see Frisco Frank,” Merker said. “I know where he lives.”

He left the office and went out upon the street. He caught a car at the corner and journeyed far downtown, and got off and walked a distance of several blocks, until he reached a cheap lodging house conducted by a widow regarded by the police as an honest, hard-working woman.

Merker did not say that he was an officer; he merely asked for Frisco Frank by the name he knew Frank was using since his alleged reform. The landlady informed Merker that his man had gone out, saying something about taking in a motion-picture show.

Thanking her, Merker walked to the corner, lighted another cigar, and prowled around where he could watch the block and the entrance to the lodging house. Once the fear came to him that Frisco Frank would not put in an appearance, that instead of going to a motion-picture theater he had made a get-away.

But Merker did not have more than half an hour to wait. He saw his man walking slowly along the street, evidently on his way home. Frisco Frank looked the hard-working man hastening to his bed, to sleep in preparation of the morrow's toil.

Merker stopped him just as he started up the steps of the lodging house.

“Just a minute, Frank,” he said.

The former convict turned gray when he recognized the detective, and twisted his lips nervously.

“I—I haven't been doing anything wrong, Mr. Merker,” he said. “I've walked the straight and narrow since I came out of stir. The day I was sprung I made up my mind to go straight. I've a good——”

“Pause a moment,” said Merker, interrupting. “I simply want to talk to you about something, Frank. I'm not hounding you. If you've been straight I'll be the last man to bother you now. Suppose we walk down the street to the little park. A lot of people around here know me, and I don't want to embarrass you—if you're straight.”

“I'm straight, all right! I'm getting along pretty well. And I'll make good yet if I'm let alone. My boss knows I've done time, and he's given me a chance.”

Jim Merker said no more until they had come to the corner and crossed to the little park. Merker led the way along one of the walks until they came to a bench in a secluded spot, and there they sat down. Frisco Frank was plainly nervous. Merker allowed his nervousness to get in its work before he spoke.

“Where were you this afternoon, Frank?” he asked, after a time.

“On the job.”

“At the brickyard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time do you go to lunch, and how long do you have?”

“I don't go to lunch,” Frank explained. “I carry a lunch with me—get it at the restaurant when I eat breakfast. I eat it about noon, without stopping my work of checking out the wagons.”

“And you did that to-day?”

“Yes, sir. A dozen of the men can tell you that I never left the yard at the noon hour.”

“Good enough,” said. “It was about two years ago we got you, wasn't it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you served eighteen months?”

“Yes, sir. The court let me off easy. I know it now. That is one of the things that made me turn straight. I didn't want a long sentence—not after serving those eighteen months.”

“Who defended you?”

“Grover Gadlan,” Frank replied.

“I thought he was a high-priced lawyer.”

“You thought right,” said Frisco Frank. “But it's worth the money when a man's liberty is at stake.”

“I suppose so. Did he nick you pretty deep?”

“I happened to have about five hundred dollars—me and my pal. And a friend of mine got hold of some more. Gadlan got me off easy, and I promised to pay him the rest when I came out. I saw him after I was sprung, and I told him I had a job. He said that I owed him a thousand dollars yet. I agreed to pay a little every two weeks.”

“Do it?”

“Yes, sir. It's a big amount, because I can't pay much at a time. But it helps keep me straight. Every time I make a payment I think of what trouble it means to go crooked. I'm to pay him some more next Saturday, when I get my wages.”

“Don't read the papers, do you?”

“Now and then when I eat breakfast, if I have time. Why?”

“Haven't read any of the evening papers?”

“No, sir,” Frank answered. “I ate my supper and then went to a picture show. Why?”

“Nothing particular at the present time. Sure you've gone straight since you came out?”

“Yes, sir,” Frank said.

“I hope so, Frank; I hope so for your sake. A peculiar thing has come to my attention within the last few hours.”

“But—but how can I be involved, sir? I've been on the level. I work all day.”

“I'm not talking about anything you did to-day, Frank.”

“Then, what——” Frisco Frank showed some fear. He was afraid of the police, though he knew that Detective Jim Merker had a name of being fair and just. He had heard that Merker was not the sort of officer to fasten a crime on a former convict just to obtain a conviction, as some officers did at times.

“Frank,” Jim Merker said, watching his man closely in the uncertain light that came from a nearby electrolier, and prepared for quick action if Frank turned hostile, “there was a murder committed to-day.”

“Murder? I—I never had anything to——”

“Don't get excited, now. Nobody is accusing you of croaking a man. There was a murder, however—at least it looks like one—and the revolver from which the shot was fired was found beside the dead man.”

“W-well?” Frisco Frank asked nervously.

“Of course, we examined the revolver, Frank. The dead man's finger prints were on it, as though he had grasped it to keep the other man from shooting, and had failed. And the prints of another man were on it—a man we have under arrest.”

The last remark seemed to give Frisco Frank some courage. He turned and looked at the detective quickly.

“If you've got the murderer why bother me about it?” Frank asked.

“Because, Frank, the finger prints of a third man were on that revolver, and they are yours!”

There was silence for an instant. Frisco Frank seemed as though turned to stone. And then he suddenly became alive again.

“I—I didn't have anything to do with it,” he said tensely. “I have been at work. I don't know anything about it—didn't know anybody had been croaked!”

“And I didn't say that you did, Frank. You're getting all worked up without cause,” Jim Merker told him. “I know you were not there at the time of the crime, Frank, if you have told me the truth about being at the brickyard. And I know you wouldn't lie to me about that, for you know very well that I could find out the truth in a short time. I'm not accusing you of the murder, Frank. What I want to know is how did your finger prints come to be on that gun?”

“I—I don't know. You're—sure?”

“Positive! Finger prints do not lie. And these were mighty plain, Frank. You've handled that gun at some time lately.”

“How—how can I tell? Maybe it's some gun I owned and sold to a pawn-broker. I got rid of all my stuff when I decided to go straight. Maybe that's it.”

“Not a chance, Frank. You never owned this gun,” Merker declared. “It just goes to show how careless a man can be. Suppose you couldn't account for yourself during the hours from noon to two o'clock to-day? You'd be in jail now, accused of homicide.”

“But I never——”

“I know you didn't. But I want to know how your prints got on that gun. You'd better tell the truth.”

“But I don't know anything about it. Let me see the gun.”

“The gun is labeled and put away for evidence,” Merker told him.

“Who—who was killed?”

“Grover Gadlan, tne lawyer!”

Frisco Frank sucked in his breath sharply. “I didn't have anything to do with it,” he declared again. “I liked Mr. Gadlan. He saved my skin, all right, and I was glad to pay him what I could.”

“I'm not accusing you of killing him to wipe out a debt, Frank. You seem to forget that what I want to know is how those prints came to be on the gun.”

“I—I haven't any idea.”

“The gun belongs to Doctor Richard Sloane,” Jim Merker said. “We have Sloane in jail accused of the crime. He and Gadlan had been enemies for years. Sloane saw Gadlan about the time of the killing, but he says that he left him alive and well. He also says that he supposed the gun was in a drawer of his desk at home. He says he doesn't know how it got beside Grover Gadlan's dead body.”

“But I—I——” Frisco Frank gasped.

“Just tell me how your finger prints got on that gun, Frank, and you'll probably be helping me and saving yourself a lot of trouble.”

“I—I can't believe it!”

“Believe what?” Merker demanded.

Frisco Frank looked away, toward the street, and Merker prepared for an attempt at escape. But Frank made no such attempt. He looked back at the detective again, and seemed to wilt.

“This—this is hard luck,” he said. “I went straight after I was sprung—like I told you. There was just—one trick. I'd hate to have everything spoiled now—hate to go back to the pen——”

“Tell it!” Merker commanded.

“I—I was paying Mr. Gadlan, like I told you. And a few days ago he—he turned nasty.”

“How?” Merker demanded.

“I went to pay him as usual, and he said that he wanted me to turn a little trick for him. When he defended me I told him a lot of things, of course. He held one of them over me—said he'd turn me over to the police if I didn't do what he said.”

“And what was that?”

“He—he wanted to make a deal with me,” Frank went on. “If I did what he wanted me to do he'd give me a receipt in full, and he'd forget what he knew about me. I knew he would keep his word, all right. So—I did it.”

“What?” Merker asked.

“He wanted me to find out about that gun of Sloane's. He described it to me and said that some of the doctor's friends in the medical society had given it to him on his birthday. Gadlan told me that I wasn't to touch anything else, and I was to take it so that they would not know it had been stolen. I wasn't to disturb anything, you see. So, if the gun was missed, they'd think some servant had mislaid it, or something like that.”

“Why?”

“I—I don't know. I thought that I had to do it. So I—I did. I nosed around and found out about the Sloane place, and I got in one night when the family was at the theater and the servants were at a dance in the neighborhood. I searched the house well and was careful not to disturb anything. Then I found the gun in the desk, and took it away. I swear that I didn't take anything else. I gave it to Mr. Gadlan the next day. I—I haven't seen it since—haven't seen him. He gave me my receipt all except ten dollars. I was to pay him that next Saturday.”

“Why the ten dollars?”

“He said that it represented the remainder of his actual expense in my case—getting the gun wiped out his services.”

“Mighty particular chap,” Merker commented.

“And now—now I suppose——”

“Frank, will you promise not to run away if I don't take you in for burglary?”

“Yes, sir! I wouldn't have turned a trick except under those conditions, sir. He—he threatened me.”

“Well, he must have been playing some sort of game,” Merker said. “Go on home now, and go about your business to-morrow as usual. But don't make the mistake of trying for a getaway! If you don't, I may forget all about this, or help you if you ever are bothered about it. And of course I may need you as a witness.”

“I understand, sir. I'll not run away.”

“Go on home, then, and get to bed!” Jim Merker commanded.

Without another word the detective got up and walked away slowly and deliberately, going toward the nearest car line. There was a puzzled expression in Jim Merker's face.

CHAPTER IV.
The Solution.

THE tragic and violent death of Grover Gadlan created a sensation throughout the entire State. The newspapers were generous with their extras, and clever reporters gathered a wealth of information. The lifelong enmity of Gadlan and Doctor Richard Sloane was set forth. Photographs of both men were reproduced in profusion. The evidence that had been made public was related at length in the press.

The gist of the stories was to the effect that, for some reason known only to himself, but possibly because of fear, Gadlan had been spending a part of his time in a little apartment he had rented in the poorer section of the city. Doctor Sloane had left his club after receiving a mysterious telephone message had gone to this apartment, had departed soon afterward in a high state of excitement, and had hurried home and acted peculiarly. Then Gadlan's body had been found, with a revolver belonging to Doctor Sloane on the floor beside it.

Sloane had made his statement to the reporters, too, and men and women sniffed when they read it. On its face it looked like a wild statement made by a man who knew his guilt, a poor subterfuge of a desperate man who faced the electric chair.

The important thing was the way professional men took it. As Sloane and Gadlan had been enemies, so now the lawyers and doctors were arrayed against one another. Prominent attorneys offered their services to aid the prosecution; prominent physicians and surgeons declared the arrest of Doctor Sloane was a crime, and announced that they would go to every length to see that he received justice.

It happened that this state of affairs helped Detective Jim Merker who was known to be in charge of the case. Merker said little the following morning when he reported at police headquarters. He had spent a few hours in sleep, and was fresh and bright.

“Well, Jim?” his captain asked.

“Funny case. I'm not done yet.”

“Take your time, Merker. When you're ready for the inquest, just shout. The coroner will wait a reasonable time for you.”

Jim Merker left headquarters and engaged a taxicab, telling the chauffeur that he would be needed probably for half a day. Merker had several visits to make. He had a new idea now concerning the case, an idea so unusual that he almost was afraid to admit it to himself. He had received several telephone messages at his home that morning, two of them over long distance from a neighboring city of considerable size and importance.

Merker went to the scene of the tragedy again, and once more he inspected carefully the papers and documents in the apartment Gadlan had engaged. Some of the papers he carried away with him. Then he went to the little drug store on the corner and showed the clerk there a photograph of Gadlan.

“Know him?” Merker asked.

“Surely. He used to come in here now and then for a soft drink or cigars. Never knew his name until I read the papers.”

“See him yesterday?” Merker asked.

“He came in about one o'clock and telephoned. Gosh, that was only a few minutes before he was killed!”

“Know anything about it?”

“He looked funny in the face—either mad or excited. He was a little forgetful, too. The bell rang after he left the phone, and I answered. It was central. We've got a regular pay phone, you know. This gent, central said, had held the wire for a time while he had somebody paged, and he held it overtime and didn't drop another nickle in the slot when she told him to.”

“Um! Merker grunted. “Know where he telephoned to?”

“Central said it was the National Club. He held the line——”

“That's enough!' Merker exclaimed. “Thanks.”

Merker went to the headquarters of the telephone company and asked for the manager. There was nothing spectacular about Merker's work; he simply used common sense and went after evidence in the ordinary, everyday method used by police detectives, which is pretty sure to get results.

Through the manager he got the operator who had handled that call the day before, and he ascertained that the call had gone to the National Club, as the drug clerk had said.

Leaving the telephone headquarters, Jim Merker journeyed uptown to the office of a physician who was noted as a specialist. He was closeted with the physician for some time, and then he went to another drug store, hurried to a telephone booth, and talked by long distance for some time.

Emerging from the booth Jim Merker purchased a cigar, lighted it, puffed a cloud of fragrant smoke toward the ceiling, and went out upon the street again like a man mildly pleased with himself. He drove to the apartment of Grover Gadlan uptown, showed his shield to the superintendent of the apartment house, and soon stood in Grover Gadlan's real home.

Jim Merker took his time now. He went to the room Gadlan had used as a library and study, he forced open Gadlan's desk, and he began examining the papers he found there. He spent more than two hours at the work.

Leaving the apartment house he journed downtown again and went to Gadlan's office. An office boy and a stenographer were in charge. Merker showed them his credentials and locked them out of the private office, while he began examining the papers he found there.

This was a big task, but he kept at it. And finally he unlocked the door and ordered the stenographer inside.

“Can you open that safe?” he asked.

“I can open the outside door, sir, so you can get to the papers, but there is an inner compartment that I cannot open.”

“The papers are what I want, not the money,” Merker told her.

Soon the girl had the safe open, and Merker sent her from the room again. Half an hour later, he left the office. From the cigar stand in the lobby of the building he called the coroner's office and requested that the inquest over the body of Grover Gadlan be held the following morning.

Jim Merker did not go to headquarters again, but he telephoned the captain that the case was solved, and then hung up before the captain could ask a multitude of questions.

Doctor Richard Sloane, meanwhile, paced the floor of his cell like a doomed man, now and then clenching his fists and shaking them at the bars that held him prisoner. His attorneys had reported that they had been unable to unearth a single bit of evidence in his favor. He had been told that the inquest would be held in the morning, and he feared that the verdict would be against him, that he would be sent back to jail to await trial for murder, without privilege of bail.

He was white and trembling the following morning when he appeared at the inquest. The hearing attracted considerable attention. The foremost attorneys and doctors of the city were there. A number of witnesses had been summoned, and there was a gleam in the eyes of the coroner, who admired the dramatic and foresaw that there would be a sensation. The coroner had been listening to Detective Jim Merker for an hour, and he was going to conduct this inquest according to the plan Merker had suggested.

The jury obtained, the old janitor was called and gave his testimony. He described the finding of the body, spoke of Sloane entering the apartment a short time before and leaving in an agitated state, and identified Sloane positively.

Merker was called to the stand and related how he had been sent to the scene, how he had found the revolver and questioned the janitor, and how he had interviewed Doctor Sloane and then had placed him under arrest.

Sloane's attorneys were careful in their cross-examination, but did not succeed in getting any of the testimony changed. Jim Merker stepped down from the stand, and the finger-print expert was called.

He described the finger prints on the revolver, testified that they were the prints of Grover Gadlan and Doctor Sloane. And then the first sensation was sprung, for the expert also declared that on the revolver were the prints of a man known to the police as Frisco Frank.

Frisco Frank, called to the stand, testified as to his theft of the gun, relying on Merker's promise to help him as much as he could. Sloane's attorneys seized upon this circumstance and made the most of it. But they did not strengthen their case much. It was a mystery why Gadlan had wished to have that revolver, but his possession of it did not mean that Sloane was innocent. The jury was remembering that Sloane visited the secret apartment of his enemy, rushed away as though terrified, and acted peculiarly upon reaching home.

Sloane took the stand next and told the story as he had told it to Jim Merker, while his wife and children sat in a corner and sobbed. Sloane spoke like a man telling the truth, but his story did not seem to have much effect on the jury. Sloane, they knew, was talking for his life—the jury wanted hard facts.

And then the coroner rubbed his spectacles, adjusted them precisely, and called Doctor James R. Gordon.

Doctor Gordon was a famous physician and heart specialist. He testified that he had not called Sloane on the telephone, thus corroborating Sloane's statement. The coroner asked him to step aside for a moment, and called the drug-store clerk. The clerk explained how Grover Gadlan had used the telephone in the store, how central had called him afterward, and then the coroner called the central operator and corroborated the clerk's story. It was established that Grover Gadlan had telephoned Doctor Sloane himself, had induced him to come to the apartment.

But what of that, the auditors were asking themselves. It looked as though there had been a quarrel after Sloane's arrival, and that Sloane had fired the fatal shot in the heat of passion. Perhaps he had killed Gadlan with his own revolver—perhaps the revolver had been on the table and he had grasped it and fired the shot, under the stress of emotion not realizing that the revolver was his. As for the reason Gadlan had for obtaining possession of the weapon—but the coroner had recalled Doctor Gordon to the stand.

“Did Mr. Gadlan ever call upon you professionally?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the doctor replied.

“When?”

“Once, about two months ago.”

“Why?”

“He had returned from a trip abroad taken after a nervous breakdown following the Granburg trial. He looked to be all right, but had not been feeling well.”

“You examined him?”

“I did,” the doctor replied.

“What was the result?”

“He had a bad heart. I told Mr. Gadlan that he had only about two or three months to live.”

A gasp ran through the audience, and men and women sat forward in their chairs,

“How did he act?” the coroner demanded.

“He seemed like a man stricken at first. And then he said that he refused to take my statement as final. I advised him to go to other heart specialists for examination, and he said that he would do so. I even recommended two or three specialists to him.”

“Did you see him after that?”

“Yes, sir. I saw him less than a week ago.

“Did he say anything then about his condition?”

“Yes. He said that he had visited two other specialists, and that their verdicts had been the same as mine, except that one of them told him he had about four months of life remaining.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Yes. I told him that naturally I felt sorry for him. But he said that he was not afraid to die. 'I'll make capital out of my death,' he told me. 'I've got an old score to pay off!”

“You don't know what he meant by that?”

“No, sir.”

The two other specialists were called. They were the one who had called Merker by telephone from another city. Grover Gadlan had gone to them and given an assumed name. They both had sentenced him to an early death.

And then the coroner recalled Detective Jim Merker to the stand, and the audience sat forward again, for there was something in Merker's manner that said another sensation was coming.

“This is a peculiar case,” the coroner said. “Our principal aim is to get at the truth, though we must use unusual methods to do so. Detective Merker, tell us what you know of this case, and what your deductions are.”

Merker cleared his throat and glanced around the room.

“It is rather a peculiar case,” he said. “After the preliminary investigation I felt reasonably sure that it was an easy case—that Doctor Sloane had quarreled with Mr. Gadlan and had killed him during that quarrel. Everything seemed to point toward that. In fact, the case was so perfect that I doubted it.

“Then we found the finger prints of Frisco Frank on the gun, and naturally I wondered how they came to be there. Frank told me the story—how he had stolen the gun from Doctor Sloane's residence for Mr. Gadlan. I began wondering then why Gadlan had wanted his enemy's revolver.

“Then I made sure that Gadlan had decoyed Sloane to his apartment by telephone, as Sloane had said. The testimony of the drug clerk and the telephone operator shows that. I grew interested in the stories the specialists told me, too. And then I went to Grover Gadlan's apartment uptown, and to his office, and searched his papers well.”

“And what are your deductions?” the coroner asked.

“Gadlan had hated Doctor Sloane for years, with a flaming hate that almost consumed him. He knew that he had but a short time to live, for the specialists had agreed upon that. So he planned to commit sucide in such a way that Doctor Sloane would be convicted of having murdered him!”

Again a chorus of gasps came from the audience. An attorney who had been retained to aid the prosecution sprang to his feet angrily.

“These nonsensical, unsubstantiated statements——” he began.

“I know that the proceeding is a bit irregular, but we want to get at the truth,” the coroner interrupted. “You may make any objections later, if it pleases you. Proceed, Mr. Merker!”

“It isn't difficult to see how he did it,” Merker went on. “He got Frisco Frank to steal that gun. He began hinting that he was afraid for his life. He engaged that little apartment and pretended to, be secretive about it.

“Then he decoyed Doctor Sloane there. He hinted at disgrace and misfortune, caused the doctor to believe that his family was in danger, and sent him away terrified. That was what Gadlan wanted. He knew that several persons would see the doctor rushing away as though he had done something terrible.

“And, as soon as Sloane hurried away, Grover Gadlan picked up the doctor's revolver and shot himself through the heart. It was to be his vengeance. He had but a short time to live at best—and by killing himself a few days in advance he could have his old enemy accused of his murder.”

“Unsubstantiated——” the attorney began again, almost purple with anger.

“Anything else to make your story look good?” the coroner asked.

“Yes, sir,” Jim Merker replied. “Going through Mr. Gadlan's papers, I found something interesting in his safe. It is in Mr. Gadlan's own handwriting, so several persons who knew him well have told me. That can be proved easily, I think.”

Merker took an envelope from his pocket and drew from it a sheet of paper.

“On the envelope is written 'To be opened six months after my death,' he announced.

“Read the letter,” the coroner instructed.

Jim Merker read:

“When this is opened and read, I shall be dust, and Sloane, my old enemy, probably will have perished in the electric chair. I have but a short time to live. If I die from this malady that has seized me, it means that Sloane triumphs over me again. He always has triumphed over me, but I am going to have the last and best laugh.

“I want the world to know now how I at last triumphed over him. I have planned to take my own life in such a fashion that it will appear Sloane murdered me. I can imagine the agony through which he and his will pass—the knowledge of his innocence that cannot be proved, the terrible wait for the day of execution, the shame and disgrace for himself and his family. I only hope that I can look down and enjoy their sufferings. I must die to triumph, but it is worth the price.”

Merker handed the letter to the prosecuting attorney; it did not take long to verify the statement that it was Grover Gadlan's handwriting. Mrs. Sloane, with a glad cry, had thrown herself upon her husband's breast, and his children were clinging to him.

“So Gadlan has failed,” Merker said. “Two things wrecked his diabolical plan. He should have polished that revolver, and then we wouldn't have found Frisco Frank's finger prints on it and guessed that Sloane hadn't taken it to the apartment. And he should not have written this letter. But he had to do that, for it was his nature. He wanted everybody to know that he had conquered his enemy. His eagerness to have the world know that, has spoiled the plan he made, and probably has saved an innocent man from the electric chair.”