appreciate it.

"How are you, McBirney?" greeted Garrick, as he met his old
friend, then, turning to young Warrington, added: "Have you had a
car stolen?"

"Have I?" chimed in the youth eagerly, and with just a trace of
nervousness. "Worse than that. I can stand losing a big nine-
thousand-dollar Mercedes, but--but--you tell it, McBirney. You
have the facts at your tongue's end."

Garrick looked questioningly at the detective.

"I'm very much afraid," responded McBirney slowly, "that this
theft about caps the climax of motor-car stealing in this city. Of
course, you realize that the automobile as a means of committing
crime and of escape has rendered detection much more difficult to-
day than it ever was before." He paused. "There's been a murder
done in or with or by that car of Mr. Warrington's, or I'm ready
to resign from the profession!"

McBirney had risen in the excitement of his revelation, and had
handed Garrick what looked like a discharged shell of a cartridge.

Garrick took it without a word, and turned it over and over
critically, examining every side of it, and waiting for McBirney
to resume. McBirney, however, said nothing.

"Where did you find the car?" asked Garrick at length, still
examining the cartridge. "We haven't found it," replied the