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It was this very day that Fleming Stone came to the house, but Fibsy did not know it, nor did Stone have the slightest idea that the boy he sought so diligently was there.

Kito answered Stone’s ring at the door, and when that gentleman pushed his way a little brusquely through the reception room to the library, the Japanese followed, politely, but with a wary eye and a tense arm.

“Good!” Stone exclaimed, looking over the appointments of the large library table. “Your master has no pencil sharpener. Now, my man, I am an agent for these,” and Stone took from his bag a small contrivance for sharpening lead pencils. “And our new method of selling these goods, is to leave one with a prospective customer, feeling sure that a trial of it will mean a quick sale. Has your master ever used a thing, like this?”

Kito had not followed all Stone’s speech, his English being somewhat limited, but by the actions of the “agent” the Japanese understood.

“No good,” he said, scornfully, “my master no want it.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Has he one?”

“No.”

“Did he ever have one?”

“Yaes.”

“Not like this.”

“Yes, just all same like that one.”

And then Stone, with his almost hypnotic power of suggestion, so hinted and insinuated and urged, that finally Kito, after a short search in a closet, triumphantly showed a pencil-sharpener exactly like the one Stone had offered.

Looking chagrined and disappointed, Stone returned his to his bag.

“Why did your master stop using it?” he asked, noting the pencil on the desk tray, undoubtedly sharpened with a knife.

“Two, four weeks, mebbe more.”

“But when?” and Stone picked up a calendar. “When?”

Slowly tracing back through his memory, Kito suddenly smiled.

“Then!” he exclaimed pointing to a date. “I know, be-cause, the same day almost, my birt’day. An’ I hoped my master give him to me for plesent. But no.”

“That’s too bad,” agreed Stone. “Well, if your master doesn’t care for his, of course he won’t buy mine. Good-day.”

Picking up his bag, he went away, and Kito closed the door behind him.

The date the Japanese had pointed to, was the day after the murder of Rowland Trowbridge!

CHAPTER XXIV
ESCAPE

Fibsy was at his wits’ end. And the wits’ end of Terence McGuire was at some distance from their beginning. But he had scrutinized every step of the way, and now he disconsolately admitted to himself that he had really reached the end.

He had been shut up in the strange house nearly a week. He was most comfortably lodged and fed, he had much reading matter supplied for his perusal, though none of it was newspapers, and Kito offered to play parchesi with him by way of entertainment. The Japanese was polite, even kindly, but he was inflexible in the matter of obeying his orders. And his scrupulous fidelity precluded any possibility of Fibsy’s getting away, or even getting out of the rooms allotted to his use.

But when the boy rose one morning after a refreshing night’s sleep and had a satisfying breakfast, and was at last locked in his room for the morning, he sat down on the edge of the bed, and clinched his impotent young fists in rage and despair.

“I gotta make me bean woik better,” he groaned to himself, the tenseness of the situation causing him to revert to his use of street slang. “I gotter get outen here, an’ most likely it’s too late now. I’m a nice detective, I am, can’t get out the fust time I’m in a hole! Gee! I’m gonta get out!”

Followed a long session of hard thinking, and then a gleam of light came to him. But he needs must wait till Kito brought up his dinner.

And at noon or thereabouts, Kito came with the usual well-appointed tray of good food.

Fibsy looked it over nonchalantly. “All right, Kite,” he said, “but say, I gotta toothache. I wish you’d gimme a toothpick, – not quill, – the wooden kind.”

Sympathetic and solicitous, the Japanese produced from his own pocket a little box of his native toothpicks, of which Fibsy accepted a couple, and pocketed them. And then, came the strategical moment. His purpose must be effected while the Jap was still in the room. And it was. Sidling to the half-open door, Fibsy called Kite’s attention to a dish on the tray, and then thrust a toothpick quickly in beside the bolt of the lock, and broke it off short.

In order to keep his jailer’s attention distracted, Fibsy then waxed loquacious, and dilated on the glories of a wonderful movie show.

Kito listened attentively, and though he said no word about going to see it, he inquired carefully where it was, and Fibsy’s hopes began to rise.

“But if ever you go, Kite,” he said, “you wanter see the very beginnin’, ’relse you lose all the fun.”

At last, Fibsy finished his dinner and the Jap took up the tray. Breathlessly, but unnoticeably, Fibsy watched him, and as he went out of the door, and turned the key in the lock, he didn’t notice that the bolt didn’t shoot home as usual, but the door was really left unlocked.

Fibsy’s heart beat like a trip-hammer as he heard the catlike footsteps go down stairs.

Unable to wait, he tried the door, and found it was open. He slipped out into the hall. Down two flights, he could hear the Japanese, going about his business. Warily, Fibsy crept down one stair-case. Then he stepped into the front room on that floor. It was evidently the room of a grand lady. Silver trinkets were here and there, but Fibsy’s quick eyes noted that the bureau was dismantled, and there were no appearances of actual occupancy.

“Mrs. Autchincloss is away fer the summer,” he said, sapiently. “Lessee furder.”

It was a risk, but Kito rarely came upstairs so soon after dinner, so the boy went through to the back room on the second floor.

“Bachelor,” he said, nodding his head at the appointments on the chiffonier. “Stayin’ in town. Kinder Miss Nancy, – here’s a little sewin’ kit some dame made fer him. An’ the way his brushes an’ things is fixed, shows he ain’t got no wife. So this ain’t Mr. Autchincloss. Well, lemmesee. Writin’ table next. Not much doin’. Fixin’s all fer show. Spose he writes down in the liberry. Wisht I could git down there. Here’s a lot of his friends.”

Fibsy had spied a pack of snapshots and small photographs, and hastily ran them over. They were all unknown faces to him, except one which chanced to be the postcard of Judge Hoyt taken in Philadelphia station.

“Hello! The guy wot lives here is a frien’ o’ Judge Hoyt. No, not a friend, but a nennermy. Cos, I dope it out, that friend guy’s locked me up here fer fear I’ll help Judge Hoyt’s case. Oh, no, I dunno, as it’s that. I dunno what it is. I wisht I could get word to Mr. Stone. If I only dared use that telephone. But Kite would fly up here quicker’n scat! Well, I’ll swipe this card, cos it looks interestin’.”

Then Fibsy, still with a wary eye on the hall door, searched the room and its dressing-room and closets, and was rewarded by some further discoveries, one of which was a dirk cane. This article was among a number of other canes and umbrellas in the far end of a deep closet.

“Now, o’ course,” he mused, “maybe tain’t the right cane, an’ maybe ’tis. But if it is, then this here’s the moiderer’s house, an’ he locked me in cos he’s scared o’ me. Well, it’s all too many fer me. Hello, wot’s this?” He opened a small door in the side of the deep closet. There seemed to be an elevator shaft, with no car. As a matter of fact, it was a laundry chute, but Fibsy was unacquainted with conveniences of that sort, and didn’t know its purpose. But he saw at once that the shaft led to the basement, and that it went upward, to a similar opening in the room above. And the room above was his room!

Softly he crept back upstairs, and re-entered his room. He dislodged the fragment of toothpick, and closed the door. If Kito discovered it was unlocked, he couldn’t help that now. He went straight to his own closet, and sure enough there was the same sort of a slide door, and it gave onto the same chute, hung over it. At last a possible way of exit. Precarious, for he had not yet decided on a safe way of descending a bare shaft, but his mind was at work now, and something must come of it.

And his mind produced this plan. He knew where Kito was now. Always at that time in the afternoon, the Japanese was in his own room in the rear part of the first floor of the house. Previous desultory chat had brought out this fact. And Fibsy’s plan was to make a soft bed at the foot of the shaft and jump down. Dangerous, almost positively disastrous, but the only chance.

“’Course I’ll break me bloomin’ back or legs or suthin’, but anyway the horsepital’d be better’n this, an’ then I could get aholt of Mr. Stone.”

So, swiftly and noiselessly, he removed all the bedding from his bed, and down the chute he threw the mattress, dropping on it the blankets and pillows.

“Here goes!” he said, not pausing to consider consequences, and, balancing for an instant on the ledge, he let himself go, and came down with a soft thud on the pillows.

Whether it was because he relaxed every muscle and fell limply, or whether it was because of a kind fate looking after him, he sustained no injuries. Not a bone broke, and though the jar was stunning, he recovered after a few minutes, and sat up half-dazed, but rapidly becoming alert, and looking about him.

The semi-darkness of the shaft showed him the exit, and it proved to be into the laundry in the basement of the house.

The rest was easy. Listening intently for a sound of Kito, and hearing none, Fibsy deliberately walked out of the basement door, and into the street.

He did not hurry, being desirous not to attract attention in any way, and as he went through the area gate, he looked up and noted the number of the house. It was as he had surmised, a house closed for the summer during the absence of the family. The Japanese butler had been retained as caretaker, and whoever was Fibsy’s captor, gave the orders. Kito was so trustworthy and faithful, there could have been no chance of Fibsy’s escape save by some such ingenious method as he had used.

“Only,” he blamed himself, “why the dickens didn’t I think of it sooner?”

Reaching the corner, he noted the street the house was on, but the fashionable locality, in the upper West Seventies, was unfamiliar to him, and he had no idea whose house he had been living in.

Nor had he had time to find out. An investigation of a street directory might have told him, but he concluded to lose no time in communicating with Fleming Stone.

But first, he telephoned his aunt to relieve the anxiety he knew she must be feeling.

“It’s all right, Aunt Becky,” he announced, cheerily. “Don’t you worry, don’t you fret. I’m on important business, and I’ll be home when I get there. So long!”

Then he called up Fleming Stone’s office. The detective was not in, but Fibsy made it so plain to a secretary that Mr. Stone must be found at once, that the finding was accomplished, and by the time Fibsy in his taxicab reached the office, Fleming Stone was there too.

“Terence!” exclaimed the detective, grasping the boy’s hand in his own. “Come in here.”

He took the lad to his inner sanctum, and said, “Tell me all about it.”

“There’s such a lot, Mr. Stone,” began Fibsy, breathlessly, “but first, how’s the trial goin’? I ain’t seen a pape since I was caught. I wanted to get one on the way here, but I got so int’rested in this here card, – say, look here. This is a pitcher of Judge Hoyt in the Philly Station the day of the moider. You know he was in Philly that day.”

“Yes, he was,” and Stone looked harassed. “He certainly was. He wrote from there and telegraphed from there and I’ve seen a card like the one you have there, and that settles it. I wish I could prove he wasn’t there.”

“Well, Mr. Stone, he prob’ly was there, all right, but this here picture wasn’t took on that day.”

“How do you know?”

“De-duck-shun!” and Fibsy indulged in a small display of vanity, quite justified by his further statement. “You see, this card shows the big news stand in the waitin’ room. Well, the papers on the news stand ain’t that week’s papers!”

“What?”

“No, sir, they ain’t. You see, I read every week ‘The Sleuth’s Own Magazine’, an’ o’ course I know every number of that ’ere thing’s well’s I know my name. An’ here, you see, sir, is the magazine I’m speakin’ of, right here in the picture. Well, on it is a cover showin’ a lady tied in a chair wit’ ropes. Well, sir, that roped lady was on the cover two weeks after Mr. Trowbridge was killed, not the day of the moider.”

“You’re sure of this, Terence?” and Stone looked at the boy with an expression almost of envy. “This is very clever of you.”

“Aw, shucks, tain’t clever at all. Only, I know them magazines like a mother’d know her own children. I read ’em over an’ over. An’ I know that picture on that cover came out more’n two weeks later’n what Judge Hoyt said it did. I mean, he didn’t have that card taken of himself on the day he said he did.”

“Motive?”

“That I dunno. I do know Judge Hoyt is tryin’ sumpin’ fierce to clear Mr. Landon – has he done it yet?”

“No, Terence, but the trial is almost over, and I think the judge has something up his sleeve that he’s holding back till the last minute. I never was in such a baffling mystery case. Every clue leads nowhere, or gets so tangled with contradictory clues that it merely misleads. Now tell me your story.”

Fibsy told the tale of his imprisonment, and the manner of his escape. He told the street and number of the house, and he told of his discovery of a dirk cane in a cupboard.

“An’ Mr. Stone,” he went on, “I found the shoe the button came off of.”

“You’re sure it was a shoe button?” and Fleming Stone smiled at recollection of the button that had been described as of several varieties.

“Yes, sir. An’ every time I said that button was a kind of button that it wasn’t, I was glad afterward that I said it. Yes, Mr. Stone it’s a shoe button an’ in that same house I was in, is the shoe it useter be on.”

“Look out now, Terence, don’t let your zeal and your imagination run away with you.”

“No, sir, but can’t you go there yourself, and get the shoe and the cane, or send for ’em, and if they fit the cane mark in the mud, and if the button I’ve got is exactly like those on that shoe, then ain’t there sumpin in it, Mr. Stone? Ain’t there?”

The freckled face was very earnest and the blue eyes very bright as Fibsy waited for encouragement.

“There’s a great deal in it, Fibsy. You have done wonderful work. In fact so wonderful, that I must consider very carefully before I proceed.”

“Yes, sir. You see maybe the place where I was, might be the house of that Mr. Lindsay, he’s a friend of Mr. Landon’s – ”

“Wait a bit, child. Now you’ve done much, so very much, have patience to go a little slowly for the next move. Do you remember what the inspector told about the noises he heard when the Italian woman first telephoned him about Mr. Trowbridge?”

“Yes sir, every woid. Rivetin’ goin on. Phonograph playin’ an’ kids whoopin’-coughin’ like fury.”

“Well, from the Board of Health I’ve found the general location of whooping-cough cases at about that time, now if we can eliminate others and find the Italian ones – ”

“Yep, I und’stand! Goin’ now?”

“Yes, at once.”

Calling a taxicab, they started, and Stone went to an Italian quarter near 125th Street, where whooping-cough had been prevalent a few weeks previous.

“Find the house, Fibsy,” he said, as they reached the infected district.

Unsmilingly, Fibsy’s sharp, blue eyes scanned block after block.

“New buildin’,” he said, at last, thoughtfully; and then, darting across the street, to a forlorn little shop, he burst in and out again, crying, “Here you are, Mr. Stone!”

Stone crossed the street and entered the shop. There was a swarthy Italian woman, and several children, some coughing, others quarreling and all dirty.

A phonograph was in evidence, and Fibsy casually looked over the records till he found the rag-time ditty the inspector had recalled.

He called up headquarters and asked Inspector Collins if that were the music he heard before. “Yes,” said Collins, and Stone shouted, “Hold that wire, Fibsy, wait a minute,” and dragging the scared woman to the telephone he bade her repeat the message she had given the day of the murder.

“Same voice! Same woman!” declared the inspector, and Stone hung up the receiver.

Then he soothed the frightened Italian, promising no harm should come to her if she told the truth.

The truth, as she tremblingly divulged it, seemed to be, that some man had come to her shop that afternoon, and forced her to telephone as he dictated. She remembered it all perfectly, and had been frightened out of her wits ever since. He had given her ten dollars which she had never dared to spend, as it was blood money!

“Describe the man,” said Stone.

“I not see heem good. He hold noosa-paper before his face, and maka me speak-a telephone.”

“How did he make you? Did he threaten you?”

“He have-a dagger. He say he killa me, if I not speak as he say.”

“Ah, a dagger! An Italian stiletto?”

“No, not Italiano. I not see it much, I so fright’. But I know it if I see it more!”

After a few more questions, Stone was ready to go. But Fibsy sidled up to the woman. “Say,” he said, “what you give your bambinos for the cough, hey? Med’cine?”

“No, I burna da Vaporina, da Vap’ da Cressar lina – ”

“Gee! Quite so! All right, old lady, much obliged!”

After that matters whizzed. On the ride down town, Fibsy told Stone much. Stone listened and made that much more. The two acted as complements, the boy having gathered facts which the man made use of.

CHAPTER XXV
THE WHOLE TRUTH

The two went straight down to the office of the district attorney. “I must send a message to Mr. Whiting at once,” Fleming Stone said to a secretary there.

“Mr. Whiting is in the Court of General Sessions, just below this office here, and I’d rather not disturb him. Can your business wait?”

“It cannot,” declared Stone, “not an instant. Please send this message immediately. Mr Whiting will not be annoyed at the interruption.”

As Fleming Stone and Fibsy entered the courtroom District Attorney Whiting was reading the note in which the detective asked the privilege of speaking to him a moment, and partially told why.

At that instant also, the jury were filing into the box prepared to give their verdict.

“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the clerk of the court, “have you arrived at a verdict?”

“We have,” replied the foreman.

“What is it?”

“We find the defendant guilty, as charged in the indictment, of – ”

“Excuse me, your Honor,” said the district attorney, hurriedly, to the judge on the bench, “I would like to interrupt here,” and he walked toward the bench.

A strange and expectant hush fell over the courtroom, as the judge and the district attorney conferred in whispers. The conference continued a few moments, and then the judge said suddenly, “This is a matter that should be discussed with the lawyer for the defense. Judge Hoyt, will you please step to the bench?”

The three held a short parley, and then the judge on the bench said, “Mr. Fleming Stone, will kindly come here?”

“If it please your Honor, I ask to be heard.”

Leslie Hoyt looked round angrily, and as Stone’s calm, clear voice was followed by the appearance of his stalwart figure, there was a stir throughout the room.

“As a detective recently employed on this case,” Stone said, “I wish to tell of my discoveries.”

“Tell your story in your own way, Mr. Stone,” instructed the judge, and Stone began.

“As you are all aware, the dying words of Mr. Trowbridge are said to be, ‘Cain killed me!’ implying, it was at first supposed, an allusion to the first murderer of Scripture history. Later, it was adjudged to mean a reference to Kane Landon. But I submit a third meaning, which is that Mr. Trowbridge was killed by a cane in the hands of his assailant, said cane being of the variety know as a dirk or sword cane. This type of walking-stick, the carrying of which is forbidden by law, has a dagger concealed in it, which may be drawn forth by the handle. An imprint has been found of a cane near the place of the crime, and to this print has been fitted a cane of the dirk or sword variety. The ownership of this cane has been traced to a man, who is known to have benefited by the death of the victim. I refer to Judge Leslie Hoyt, the counsel for the defense!”

A sudden commotion was followed by an intense hush. Hoyt’s face was like carved marble. No emotion of any sort did he show, but waited, as if for Stone to proceed.

And Stone did proceed. “Here is the cane,” he said, taking a long parcel from a messenger. “Is it yours, Mr. Hoyt?”

Hoyt glanced at it carelessly.

“No, I never saw it before,” he said.

“It was found in the closet of your dressing-room,” went on Stone.

“By whom?”

“Terence McGuire.”

A look of hatred dawned on Hoyt’s face, also the first expression of fear he had shown.

“That self-avowed liar!” he said, contemptuously.

“His word is not in question now,” said Stone, sternly. “This cane was found in your apartments. It is a dirk, as may be seen.”

Stone drew out the slender, sharp blade, and the audience shivered.

Disregarding Hoyt, Stone continued his address to the court.

“Additional evidence is a shoe button picked up at the scene of the crime. It is proved to be from one of Mr. Hoyt’s shoes. True, these do not connect Mr. Hoyt directly with this murder, but I can produce a witness who will do so.”

Stone then proceeded to tell of the Italian woman and her story.

“The connecting link is this,” he said; “the day after the murder, during the coroner’s inquest, our bright young friend, McGuire, noticed on Mr. Hoyt’s coat an odor familiar to him as a remedy used to burn for whooping-cough. The scent is strong and unmistakable and clings ineradicably to a garment that has been worn, even for a few moments where the remedy is used. Mrs. Robbio’s children had the whooping-cough; she was using the remedy the day the murderer stopped in at her little shop and threatening her with this very dirk, forced her to deliver the message he dictated to the police station.

“It was a clever ruse and would have remained undetected, but for the quick-witted youth who noticed the odor, and remembered it when whooping-cough was mentioned.”

“A string of lies,” sneered Hoyt. “Made up by the notorious street gamin who glories in his sobriquet of liar!”

Still unheeding, Stone went on.

“In search for a motive for the murder of Rowland Trowbridge by Leslie Hoyt, I examined the will of the deceased, and discovered, what I am prepared to prove, that it is, in part, a forgery. The instrument was duly drawn up by Judge Hoyt, as lawyer for the testator. It was duly witnessed, and after, – ”

Fleming Stone paused and looked fixedly at Hoyt, and the latter at last quailed before that accusing glance.

“And after, at his leisure, the lawyer inserted on the same typewriter, and with greatest care, the words, ‘and herself become the wife of Leslie Hoyt.’ This clause was not written or dictated by Mr. Trowbridge, it was inserted after his death, by his lawyer.”

“You can’t prove that!” cried Hoyt springing to his feet.

“I can easily prove it,” declared Stone; “It is written on a new ribbon known to have been put into the typewriter, the afternoon the murder took place. And, too, it is of slightly different slant and level from the rest. Of course, it was only by microscopic investigation I discovered these facts, but they are most clearly proven.”

“Gee! he’s goin’ to brash it out!” exclaimed Fibsy, under his breath, as Hoyt rose, with vengeance in his eye.

But the judge waved him back as Stone proceeded.

“I understand Mr. Hoyt claims as an alibi, that he was in Philadelphia that day.”

“I was,” declared the accused; “I brought home an afternoon paper from that city.”

“The paper was from that city, but you bought it at a New York news stand to prove your case, should it ever be necessary.”

“What rubbish! I wrote Mr. Trowbridge the day before, that I was going. The letter was found in his pocket.”

“Where you placed it yourself after the murder!” shot back Stone.

“Ridiculous! I also telegraphed to – ”

“The telegram was faked. I have examined it myself, and it is typewritten in imitation of the usual form, but it never went through the company’s hands. That, too, you placed in Mr. Rowland’s pocket after, – after the cane killed him! You remember, Mr. District Attorney, a lead pencil was found on the ground at the scene of the crime. I am prepared to prove this pencil the property of Judge Hoyt. And this is my proof. Until the day of the crime, Judge Hoyt had been in the habit of using a patent sharpener to sharpen his lead pencils. I have learned from Judge Hoyt’s Japanese servant, that the day after the murder, Judge Hoyt discarded that sharpener, and used a knife. This was to do away with any suspicion that might rest on him as owner of the pencil. On that very date, he resharpened, with a penknife, all his pencils and thus cleverly turned the tide of suspicion.”

“Also a clever feat, the finding of this out,” murmured Whiting.

“The credit for that is due to the lad, McGuire,” said Stone. “At the time of the inquest, the boy noticed the pencil, particularly; and afterward, telling me of his surmises, I looked up the matter and found the proof. Again, the man I accuse, secured a handkerchief from Stryker’s room, and carried it away for the purpose of incriminating the butler. It seems, owing to a past secret, the butler was in the power of Judge Hoyt. However, circumstances led suspicion in other directions. The tell-tale handkerchief seemed to point first to the Swedish couple. Later it seemed to point to the butler, Stryker, and later still, was used as a point against Kane Landon. But it is really the curse that has come home to roost where it belongs, as a condemnation of Judge Leslie Hoyt. This arch criminal planned so cleverly and carried out his schemes so carefully, that he overreached himself. His marvelously complete alibi is too perfect. His diabolical skill in arranging his spurious letter, telegram, newspaper, and finally a picture postcard, which I shall tell of shortly, outdid itself, and his excessive care was his own undoing. But, in addition to these points, I ask you to hear the tale of young McGuire, who has suffered at the hands of Judge Hoyt, not only injustice and inconvenience, but attempted crime.”

Fibsy was allowed to tell his own story, and half shy, half frightened, he began.

“At first, Judge Hoyt he wanted me to go to woik in Philadelphia, an’ I thought it was queer, but I went, an’ I discovered he was payin’ me wages himself. That was funny, an’ it was what gimme the foist steer. So I came back to New York an’ I stayed here, makin’ b’lieve me aunt needed me. So then one day, Judge Hoyt, he took me to dinner at a restaurant, sayin’ he took a notion to me, an’ wanted me to learn to be a gent’man. Well, when we had coffee, he gimme a little cup foist, an’ then he put some sugar in it fer me. Well, I seen the sugar was diffrunt – ”

“Different from what?” asked Whiting.

“From the rest’rant sugar. That was smooth an’ oblong, and what the judge put into my cup, was square lumps, and rougher on the sides. So I s’picioned sumpin was wrong, an’ I didn’t drink that coffee. I left it on the table. An’ soon’s I reached the street I ran back fer me paper, what I’d left on poipose, and I told the waiter to save that cup o’ coffee fer evidence in a moider trial. An’ he did, an’ Mr. Stone he’s had it examined, an’ it’s full of – of what, Mr. Stone?”

“Of nitro-glycerine,” asserted Stone, gravely.

“Yes, sir, Judge Hoyt tried to kill me, he did.” Fibsy’s big blue eyes were dark with the thrill of his subject rather than fear now. He was absorbed in his recital, and went steadily on, his manner and tone, unlettered and unschooled though they were, carrying absolute conviction of truth.

“When I seen that queer sugar goin’ in me cup, me thinker woiked like lightnin’ an’ I knew it meant poison. So I thunk quickly how to nail the job onto him, and I did. Then soon after that, I was kidnapped. A telephone call told me Mr. Stone was waitin’ fer me in a taxi, and when I flew meself to it, it wasn’t Mr. Stone at all, but a Japanese feller, name o’ Kite. He took me to a swell house, and locked me in. If I tried any funny business he gave me a joo jitsy, till I quit tryin’. Well, I didn’t know whose house it was, but I’ve sence found out it was Judge Hoyt’s. He lived with his sister an’ she’s away, but the Jap told me it was another man’s house. Well, in that house, I found one o’ them postcard pictures o’ Judge Hoyt in the Philadelphia station. I didn’t think even then, ’bout me bein’ in his house, I just thought maybe it was a friend o’ hisen. But when I ’zamined that picture, I saw the judge had pertended it was took a diffrunt date from what it was. Now, I thought he kinda lugged it in by the ears when he showed it to me anyway, an’ I began to s’picion he meant to make me think sumpin’ what wasn’t so. ’Course that could only be that he wasn’t in Phil’delphia when he said he was. An’ he wasn’t.”

Fibsy’s quietly simple statements were more dramatic than if he had been more emphatic, and the audience listened, spellbound.

Judge Hoyt sat like a graven image. He neither denied nor admitted anything, one might almost say he looked slightly amused, but a trembling hand, and a constant gnawing of his quivering lip told the truth to a close observer.

“And you were held prisoner in Judge Hoyt’s house, how long?”

“Nearly a week.”

“And then?”

“Then I jumped down a clothes chute, and ran out on the basement door.”

“A clothes chute? You mean a laundry slide?”

“Yes, sir. I’m told it’s that. I didn’t know what it was. Only it was a way out.”

“You jumped?”

“Well, I sorter slid. I threw down pillers and mattresses first, so it was soft.”

“You are a clever boy.”

“No, sir, it ain’t that,” and Fibsy looked embarrassed. “You see, I got that detective instick, an’ I can’t help a usin’ of it. You see, it was me what got Miss Trowbridge to send for Mr. Stone, an’ then Judge Hoyt he tried to head him off.”