me, reflectively, when they had gone.

I nodded assent, for we had often discussed the subject.

"There must be something new in order to catch criminals,
nowadays," he pursued. "The old methods are all right--as far as
they go. But while we have been using them, criminals have kept
pace with modern science."

I had met Garrick several months before on the return trip from
abroad, and had found in him a companion spirit.

For some years I had been editing a paper which I called "The
Scientific World," and it had taxed my health to the point where
my physician had told me that I must rest, or at least combine
pleasure with business. Thus I had taken the voyage across the
ocean to attend the International Electrical Congress in London,
and had unexpectedly been thrown in with Guy Garrick, who later
seemed destined to play such an important part in my life.

Garrick was a detective, young, university bred, of good family,
alert, and an interesting personality to me. He had travelled
much, especially in London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, where he
had studied the amazing growth abroad of the new criminal science.

Already I knew something, by hearsay, of the men he had seen,
Gross, Lacassagne, Reiss, and the now immortal Bertillon. Our
acquaintance, therefore, had rapidly ripened into friendship, and
on our return, I had formed a habit of dropping in frequently on
him of an evening, as I had this night, to smoke a pipe or two and