"Did your father have his lecture with him?"

"Oh, yes. He glanced over it at breakfast. He told me he was going
to startle the world as it had never been since the day of
Columbus."

"Indeed."

"Yes. And he was terribly impatient. He said he had to be at the
college before eight to receive the great man. He was to deliver
his lecture at ten. And afterward he would have lunch at noon and
he would give me the whole story. I'm all impatience."

"Thank you."

Then he came back and made the announcement that there was a
little delay; but that Dr. Holcomb would be there shortly. But he
was not. At twelve o'clock there were still some people waiting.
At one o'clock the last man had slipped out of the room--and
wondered. In all the country there was but one person who knew.
That one was an obscure man who had yielded to a detective's
intuition and had fallen inadvertently upon one of the greatest
mysteries of modern times.




III