The way in which Crewe had pulled the police case to pieces had shown Rolfe that the conviction of Birchill was by no means a foregone conclusion, and had left him a prey to doubts and anxiety which Inspector Chippenfield's subsequent depreciation of the detective's views had not altogether removed.

" Rolfe, whose association with Crewe in the case had awakened in him a keen admiration for the private detective's methods and abilities, permitted himself to defy his superior officer to the extent of saying that "the best way to prove Kemp a liar is to prove that his story is false.

" The tone was dry, the words abrupt, but the detective's heart was dancing like a feather.

"Of course not," was the detective's reply.

And although I was silent, I shared the Scotch detective's belief.

But what is the matter with that creature of yours hovering in the background?" The Prince turned and beheld Glück, evidently expecting orders to accomplish an assault upon the detective's person.

I must have lost it at the hotel, or the detective's, or in the automobile I had hired.

That would be the detective's advice, I'm sure, and probably Van Torp approved of it.'

The Head listened to the amateur detective's statement with interest.

But there was nothing else to be seen, except that near the table there were indistinct glimmerings of light, and at the far end the outline of a dull glowing revolver, evidently in the detective's pocket.

You mean you suspectYou're placing me under arrest?" The detective's straight smile returned.

You know, I wouldn't want you to touch anything, because the room is exactly as it was when he was murdered!" Bobby experienced a swift impulse to strangle the brutal word in the detective's throat.

Unless they could demolish the detective's theory he, Bobby Blackburn, would go to the death house.

Bobby saw the candle quiver at last in the detective's hand.

" Bobby stared at the slight protuberance in the breast pocket of the detective's coat.

The detective's keen senses were satisfied.

There was a half quizzical light in the detective's eyes as he spoke, apparently to no one.

" "Indeed!" Faith's head towered above the detective's as she spoke.

"Oh, Mr. Denton, is there not some other way to do this?" "I wish there was," said that gentleman shortly, "for our detective's mistakes have already cost us several thousand dollars.

The detective's ruse in covering the candy had produced results as startling as they were suspicious.

Like a flash it came into the detective's mind that the same automobile had passed them once before some streets back.

And on a chair beside the girl, battered and blackened, sat Esmeralda, while under the detective's pillow was the scorched but unharmed diary of De Heidelmann-Bruck!

MARSDEN, MARIE M. Junior detective's fingerprint book.

SEE Marsden, Thomas G. MARSDEN, THOMAS G. Junior detective's fingerprint book.

And yet all the time she was filling the detective's mind with the blackest suspicions against herself.