placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it
was not at all conspicuous, and focused it on the safe.

"This is a camera with a newly-invented between-lens shutter of
great illumination and efficiency," he explained. "It has always
been practically impossible to get such pictures, but this new
shutter has so much greater speed than anything ever invented before
that it is possible to use it in detective work. I'll just run
these fine wires like a burglar alarm, only instead of having an
alarm I'll attach them to the camera so that we can get a picture.
I've proved its speed up to one two-thousandth of a second. It
may or it may not work. If it does we'll catch somebody, right in
the act."

About noon we went down to Liberty Street, home of burglary
insurance. I don't think Blake liked it very much because Kennedy
insisted on playing the lone hand, but he said nothing, for it was
part of the agreement. Maloney seemed rather glad than otherwise.
He had been combing out some tangled clues of his own about Mrs.
Branford. Still, Kennedy smoothed things over by complimenting the
detective on his activity, and indeed he had shown remarkable
ability in the first place in locating Mrs. Branford.

"I started out with the assumption that the Branfords must have
needed money for some reason or other," said Maloney. " So I went
to the commercial agencies to-day and looked up Branford. I can't
say he has been prosperous; nobody has been in Wall Street these
days, and that's just the thing that causes an increase in fake
burglaries. Then there is another possibility," he continued
triumphantly. "I had a man up at the Grattan Inn, and he reports