talk over matters of common interest in his profession.

He had paused a moment in what he was saying, but now resumed,
less reflectively, "Fortunately, Marshall, the crime-hunters have
gone ahead faster than the criminals. Now, it's my job to catch
criminals. Yours, it seems to me, is to show people how they can
never hope to beat the modern scientific detective. Let's strike a
bargain."

I was flattered by his confidence. More than that, the idea
appealed to me, in fact was exactly in line with some plans I had
already made for the "World," since our first acquaintance.

And so it came about that the case brought to him by McBirney and
young Warrington was responsible for clearing our ideas as to our
mutual relationship and thus forming this strange partnership that
has existed ever since.

"Tom," he remarked, as we left the office quite late, after he had
arranged affairs as if he expected to have no time to devote to
his other work for several days, "come along and stay with me at
my apartment to-night. It's too late to do anything now until to-
morrow."

I accepted his invitation without demur, for I knew that he meant
it, but I doubt whether he slept much during the night. Certainly
he was up and about early enough the following morning.

"That's curious," I heard him remark, as he ran his eye hastily
over the first page of the morning paper, "but I rather expected