We had scarcely returned to the laboratory, however, when a car
drove up furiously and a young man bustled in to see us.

"You do not know me," he introduced, "but I am Rodman Lane,
general manager of the Continental Express. You know our company
has had charge of the big shipments of gold and securities to New
York. I suppose you've read about what happened to Barnes, our
treasurer. I don't know anything about it--haven't even time to
find out. All I know is that it puts more work on me, and I'm
nearly crazy already."

I watched him narrowly.

"We've had little trouble of any kind so far," he hurried on,
"until just now I learned that all the roads over which we are
likely to send the shipments have been finding many more broken
rails than usual."

Kennedy had been following him keenly.

"I should like to see some samples of them," he observed.

"You would?" said Lane, eagerly. "I've a couple of sections sawed
from rails down at my office, where I asked the officials to send
them."

We made a hurried trip down to the express company's office.
Kennedy examined the sections of rails minutely with a strong
pocket-lens.