elusive idea had taken root in his mind he seemed to grow in stature as well as in intellect. His eyes became animated, his nostrils distended, his foolish little mustache took on an air of dignity, and his narrow shoulders seemed to grow straighter and to broaden.
Twisting the starboard point of his mustache fiercely between his fingers, he began to pace rapidly up and down the room. Dobson, who was acquainted with these symptoms, threw a significant look at the coroner. The look, however, failed to register, for Rane was staring at the floor, with knitted brow. He appeared to be thinking deeply.
Strange scratched his ear reflectively and stole a glance at the Frenchman, He, also was familiar with the latter's eccentricities and, like the major, was always a little awed by an outburst of his friend's temperament. Experience had taught him that this was a moment for silence, and he was determined to maintain it at all costs.
But even while he was rolling this thought around in his mind, and glaring threateningly at O'Shane, who was moistening his lips as if about to speak, the Frenchman put an end to it in a manner peculiarly his own.
"Triomphe!" he cried, with such suddenness and vigor that the iron-nerved detective sergeant jumped. "I've got it! At last I see the light!"
In his excitement he danced up and down in front of the major, to the secret amusement of the coroner and the astonishment of Deweese. Strange, however, knowing what this overflow of energy denoted, leaned orward eagerly and strained his ears to cateh what would follow.
"Well, what have you got!" asked the major calmly, though the coroner thought he could detect a note of vast relief in his voice.
"The answer to the riddle, major," yelled Peret too excited to contain himself. "I've got it! I've found it! The mystery is solved. Nom de diable! The Thing is—"
"Stop," said the major, truculently. "We must use some discretion here. Are you sure you know what you are talking about, Peret, or are you simply making a wild guess?"
"I know it," shouted Peret, making a heroic though futile effort to lower his voice. "Ah, it was too simple! Like taking the candy from the mouth of the little one! Oui, m'sieu; The mystery is solved! I stake my reputation on it. I will show you—Stay!"
To the horror of the central office men, he grasped the dignified major by the lapel of his coat and dragged him (not unwillingly) out of his chair and half across the room. When they were well out of earshot of the others, he drew the major's head down and poured a perfect torrent of whispers in his ear.
Dobson heard the Frenchman out without interruption, but, while evincing the deepest interest, he did not appear to be altogether convinced. However, Peret had once been under his command, and there was no one who had more respect for his ability. It was he himself who, a year or so previously, had characterized the Frenchman as "an accomplished linguist, a master of disguise and one of the most astute criminologists on this side of the Atlantic."
In his present extremity, moreover, he was like a drowning man clutching at a straw. He was not in a position to reject a possible solution of the mystery advanced by a man of Peret's ability, no matter how unsound it might appear to him.
"What you say seems plausible enough," he remarked, when Peret paused for want of breath; "but it is, after all, only a theory. There is not a shred of evidence to give weight to your words."
"Evidence is sometimes the biggest liar in the world," said Peret, a lit-
