on him and had my expenses for my trouble. There is a reward of five
hundred dollars, but none of us ever got a sight of him. You don't
mean to say--"

"Yes, I do. He has been under the noses of you fellows all the time.
He comes by night to the old graveyard at the White Church."

"The devil! That's where they buried his wife."

"Well, you fellows might have had sense enough to suspect that he
would return to her grave some time."

"The very last place that anyone would have expected him to return
to."

"But you had exhausted all the other places. Learning your failure
at them, I 'laid for him' there."

"And you found him?"

"Damn it! he found ME. The rascal got the drop on me--regularly held
me up and made me travel. It's God's mercy that he didn't go through
me. Oh, he's a good one, and I fancy the half of that reward is
enough for me if you're needy."

Holker laughed good humoredly, and explained that his creditors were
never more importunate.

"I wanted merely to show you the ground, and arrange a plan with
you," the detective explained. "I thought it as well for us to be