O'Connor shook his head. "I'd better keep out of it. They know me
too well. Go alone. I'll get that stool-pigeon - the Gay Cat is
his name - to go with you. I'll help you in any way. I'll have
any number of plain-clothes men you want ready to raid the place the
moment you get the evidence. But you'll never get any evidence if
they know I'm in the neighbourhood."

The next morning Craig scarcely ate any breakfast himself and made
me bolt my food most unceremoniously. We were out in Montclair
again before the commuters had started to go to New York, and that
in spite of the fact that we had stopped at his laboratory on the
way and had got a package which he carried carefully.

Kennedy instituted a most thorough search of the house from cellar
to attic in daylight. What he expected to find, I did not know,
but I am quite sure nothing escaped him.

"Now, Walter," he said after he had ransacked the house, "there
remains just one place. Here is this little wall safe in Mrs.
Branford's room. We must open it."

For an hour if not longer he worked over the combination, listening
to the fall of the tumblers in the lock. It was a simple little
thing and one of the old-timers in the industry would no doubt have
opened it in short order. The perspiration stood out on his
forehead, so intent was he in working the thing. At last it yielded.
Except for some of the family silver, the safe was empty.

Carefully noting how the light shone on the wall safe, Craig
unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He