him. "I know that it was a great deal to ask, but we're at our
wits' end, and so I telephoned. It's the most inexplicable--There!
you have heard that phrase before. But clews--there are absolutely
none. That is, we have not been able to find any. Perhaps you can.
At least, that is what we hope. I've known you more than once to
succeed where others have failed."

The elderly man thus addressed, glanced down at his legs, now
propped up on a stool which someone had brought him, and smiled,
with the pathos of the old who sees the interests of a lifetime
slipping gradually away.

"I am not what I was. I can no longer get down on my hands and
knees to pick up threads from the nap of a rug, or spy out a spot
of blood in the crimson woof of a carpet."

"You shall have Sweetwater here to do the active work for you.
What we want of you is the directing mind--the infallible instinct.
It's a case in a thousand, Gryce. We've never had anything just
like it. You've never had anything at all like it. It will make
you young again."

The old man's eyes shot fire and unconsciously one foot slipped to
the floor. Then he bethought himself and painfully lifted it back
again.

"What are the points? What's the difficulty?" he asked. "A
woman has been shot--"

"No, not shot, stabbed. We thought she had been shot, for that was