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<5^


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 345
"Tell him to turn 'cm out to pasture and keep
'em as long as they live, at my expense," called
back Average Jones as the door slammed behind
him.
Miss Sylvia Graham looked down upon a slender
finger ornamented with the oddest and the most ap-
propriate of engagement rings, a scarab beetle red-
banded with three deep-hued rubies.
"But, Average," she said, and the golden laugh-
ter flickered again in the brown depths of her eyes,
"not even you could expect a girl to accept a man
through a keyhole."
"I suppose not," said Average Jones with a sigh
of profoundest content "Some are for privacy in
these matters; others for publicity. But I suppose
I'm the first man in history who ever got his heart's
answer in an advertisement."
THE END


344 AVERAGE JONES
Average Jones mentioned a destination for Ram-
son's beetles deeper than they had ever digged for
prey.
"Yes, sir," assented Simpson. "But if I might
suggest, there's a very interesting advertisement in
yesterday's paper repeated this morn—"
"I don't want to see it."
"No, sir. But—but still—it—it seems to have a
strange reference to the burial of the million-dollar
dog, and an invitation that I thought—"
"Where is it? Give it to me!" For once in his
life, high pressure of excitement had blotted out Av-
erage Jones' drawl. His employee thrust into his
hand this announcement from the Banner of that
morning:
DIED—At 100 Wot 16th Street, Sept. 14. Peter
Paul, a dof. for many years the faithful and fond
companion of the late Amelia Van Haltern. Burial tn
accordance with the wish and will of Mrs. Van Hal-
tern, at the family estate. Schuylkill. Sept. 17, at J
o'clock. His friend, Don Quixote, it especially bid-
den to come, if he will.
Average Jones leaped to his feet. "My parable,"
he cried. "Don Quixote and the damsel in distress.
Where's my hat? Where's the time-table? Get a
cab! Simpson, you idiot, why didn't you make me
read this before, confound you! I mean God bless
you. Your salary's doubled from to-day. I'm off."
"Yes, sir," said the bewildered Simpson, "but
about Ramson's beetles?"


►

HARVARD
COLLEGE
LIBRARY


4





AVERAGE JONES





r





AVERAGE JONES
By
Samuel Hopkins Adams
AUTHOR OF
THB GREAT AMERICAN FRAUD, and with
STEWART BDWARD WHITE.
THB MYSTERY
Illustrations by
M. Leone Bracker
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS


Aum.zs
copyright 1911
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Hart a - r.-ihrary.
Gift of
PtOi. "Willis A. i;oug ton
Sep. 10 J 920


CONTENTS
curm pack
I The B-Flat Trombone 1
II Red Dot 38
III Open Trail 72
IV The Mercy Sign—Part I 110
V The Mercy Sign—Part II 133
VI Blot Fires 160
VII Pin Pricks 190
VIII Big Print 218
DC The Man Who Spoke Latin 249
X The One Best Bet 280
XI The Million Dollar Dog 309





AVERAGE JONES
CHAPTER I
THE B-FLAT TROMBONE
THREE men sat in the Cosmic Club discuss-
ing the question: "What's the matter with
Jones?" Waldemar, the oldest of the conferees,
was the owner, and at times the operator, of an im-
portant and decent newspaper. His heavy face
wore the expression of good-humored power, char-
acteristic of the experienced and successful jour-
nalist. Beside him sat Robert Bertram, the club
idler, slender and languidly elegant. The third
member of the conference was Jones himself.
Average Jones had come by his nickname inevi-
tably. His parents had foredoomed him to it when
they furnished him with the initials A. V. R. E. as
preface to his birthright of J for Jones. His char-
acter apparently justified the chance concomitance.
He was, so to speak, a composite photograph of any
thousand well-conditioned, clean-living Americans
i


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 3
mayor's chair with a good name and come out with
a block of ice stock." In a will whose cynical hu-
mor was the topic of its day, Mr. Egerton jeered
posthumously at the public which he had despoiled,
and promised restitution, of a sort, through his heir.
"Therefore," he had written, "I give and be-
queath to the said Adrian Van Reypen Egerton
Jones, the residue of my property, the principal to
be taken over by him at such time as he shall have
completed five years of continuous residence in New
York City. After such time the virus of the me-
tropolis will have worked through his entire being.
He will squander his unearned and undeserved for-
tune, thus completing the vicious circle, and return-
ing the millions acquired by my political activities,
in a poisoned shower upon the city, for which, hav-
ing bossed, bullied and looted it, I feel no sentiment
other than contempt."
"And now," remarked Waldemar in his heavy,
rumbling voice, "you aspire to disappoint that good
old man."
"It's only human nature, you know," said Aver-
age Jones. "When a man puts a ten-million-dollar
curse on you and suggests that you haven't the back-
bone of a shrimp, you—you—"
"—naturally yearn to prove him a liar," supplied
Bertram.


4 AVERAGE JONES
"Exactly. Anyway, I've no taste for dissipa-
tion, either moral or financial. I want action; some-
thing to do. I'm bored, in this infernal city."
"The wail of the unslaked romanticist," com-
mented Bertram.
"Romanticist nothing!" protested the other. "My
ambitions are practical enough if I could only get
'em stirred up."
"Exactly. Boredom is simply romanticism with
a morning-after thirst. You're panting for ro-
mance, for something bizarre. Egypt and St. Pe-
tersburg and Buenos Ayres and Samoa have all
become commonplace to you. You've overdone
them. That's why you're back here in New York
waiting with stretched nerves for the Adventure of
Life to cat-creep up from behind and toss the lariat
of rainbow dreams over your shoulders."
Waldemar laughed. "Not a bad diagnosis. Why
don't you take up a hobby, Mr. Jones?"
"What kind of a hobby?"
"Any kind. The club is full of hobby-riders. Of
all people that I know, they have the keenest appe-
tite for life. Look at old Denechaud; he was a
misanthrope until he took to gathering scarabs. Fen-
ton, over there, has the finest collection of circus
posters in the world. Bellerding's house is a mu-
seum of obsolete musical instruments. De Gay col-


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 5
lects venomous insects from all over the world; no
harmless ones need apply. Terriberry has a mania
for old railroad tickets. Some are really very curi-
ous. I've often wished I had the time to be a crank.
It's a happy life."
"What line would you choose?" asked Bertram
languidly.
"Nobody has gone in for queer advertisements
yet, I believe," replied the older man. "If one could
take the time to follow them up—but it would mean
all one's leisure."
"Would it be so demanding a career?" said Av-
erage Jones, smiling.
"Decidedly. I once knew a man who gave away
twenty dollars daily on clues from the day's news.
He wasn't bored for lack of occupation."
"But the ordinary run of advertising is nothing
more than an effort to sell something by yelling in
print," objected Average Jones.
"Is it? Well perhaps you don't look in the right
place."
Waldemar reached for the morning's copy of the
Universal and ran his eye down the columns of
"classified" matter. "Hark to this," he said, and
read:
"Is there any work on God's green earth for
a man who has just got to have it?"


6 AVERAGE JONES
"Or this:
"Wanted—A venerable looking man with white
beard and medical degree. Good pay to right
applicant."
"What's that?" asked Average Jones with awak-
ened interest.
"Only a quack medical concern looking for a
'stall' to impress their 'come-ons,' " explained Wal-
demar.
Average Jones leaned over to scan the paper in
his turn.
"Here's one," said he, and read:
"Wanted—Performer on B-flat trombone. Can
use at once. Apply with instrument, after I p. m.
300 East 1 ooth Street."
"That seems ordinary enough," said Waldemar.
"What's it doing in a daily paper? There must
be—er—technical publications—er—journals, you
know, for this sort of demand."
"When Average's words come slow, you've got
him interested." commented Bertram. "Sure sign."
"Nevertheless, he's right," said Waldemar. "It
is rather misplaced."


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 7
"How is this for one that says what it means?"
said Bertram.
"Wanted—At once, a brass howitzer and a man
who isn't afraid to handle it . Mrs. Anne Cullen,
Pier 4914 East River."
"The woman who is fighting the barge combine,"
explained Waldemar. "Not so good as it looks.
She's bluffing."
"Anyway, I'd like a shy at this business," de-
clared Average Jones with sudden conviction. "It
looks to me like something to do."
"Make it a business, then," advised Waldemar.
"If you care really to go in for it, my newspaper
would be glad to pay for information such as you
might collect. We haven't time, for example, to
trace down fraudulent advertisers. If you could
start an enterprise of that sort, you'd certainly
find it amusing, and, at times, perhaps, even ad-
venturous."
"I wouldn't know how to establish it," objected
Average Jones.
The newspaper owner drew a rough diagram on
a sheet of paper and filled it in with writing, cross-
ing out and revising liberally. Divided, upon his
pattern, into lines, the final draft read:


8
AVERAGE JONES
Have
You
Been
Stung?
Thousands have.
Thousands will be.
They* re Laying for
You.
Whot
The Advertising
Crooks.
A. Jones
Ad-Visor
Can Protect You
Against Them.
Before Spending Your
Money Call on Him.
Advice on all Subjects
Connected with News-
paper, Magazine or
Display Advertising.
Free Consultation to
Persons Unable to Pay.
Call or Write, Enclos-
ing Postage. This It
On The Level.
Jones, Ad-Visor.
"Ad-Visor! Do you expect me to blight my bud-
ding career by a poisonous pun like that?" demanded
Average Jones with a wry face.
"It may be a poisonous pun, but it's an arresting
catch-word," said Waldemar, unmoved. "Single
column, about fifty lines will do it in nice, open
style. Caps and lower case, and black-faced type


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 9
for the name and title. Insert twice a week in every
New York and Brooklyn paper."
"Isn't it—er—a little blatant?" suggested Ber-
tram, with lifted eyebrows.
"Blatant?" repeated its inventor. "It's more than
that. It's howlingly vulgar. It's a riot of glaring
yellow. How else would you expect to catch the
public?"
"Suppose, then, I do burst into flame to this ef-
fect?" queried the prospective "Ad-Visor." "Et
apres? as we proudly say after spending a week in
Paris."
"Apris? Oh, plenty of things. You hire an
office, a clerk, two stenographers and a clipping ex-
pert, and prepare to take care of the work that
comes in. You'll be flooded," promised Waldemar.
"And between times I'm to go skipping about,
chasing long white whiskers and brass howitzers
and B-flat trombones, I suppose."
"Until you get your work systematized you'll
have no time for skipping. Within six months, if
you're not sandbagged or jailed on fake libel suits,
you'll have a unique bibliography of swindles. Then
I'll begin to come and buy your knowledge to keep
my own columns clean.":
The speaker looked up to meet the gaze of an
iron-gray man with a harsh, sallow face.
"Excuse my interrupting," said the new-comer.


1o AVERAGE JONES
"Just one question, Waldemar. Who's going to be
the nominee?"
"Under."
"Linder? Surely not I Why, his name hasn't
been heard."
"It will be."
"His Federal job?"
"He resigns in two weeks."
"His record will kill him."
"What record? You and I know he's a grafter.
But can we prove anything? His clerk has always
handled all the money."
"Wasn't there an old scandal—a woman case?"
asked the questioner vaguely.
"That Washington man's wife? Too old. Lin-
der would deny it flatly, and there would be no wit-
nesses. The woman is dead—killed by his brutal
treatment of her, they say. But the whole thing
was hushed up at the time by Linder's pull, and
when the husband threatened to kill him Linder
quietly set a commissioner of insanity on the case
and had the man put away. He's never appeared
since. No, that wouldn't be politically effective."
The gray man nodded, and walked away, musing.
"Egbert, the traction boss," explained Waldemar.
"We're generally on opposite sides, but this time
we're both against Linder. Egbert wants a cheaper
man for mayor. I want a straighter one. And I


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE n
could get him this year if Linder wasn't so well for-
tified. However, to get back to our project, Mr.
Jones—"
Get back to it they did with such absorption that
when the group broke up, several hours later, Av-
erage Jones was committed, by plan and rote, to the
new and hopeful adventure of Life.
In the great human hunt which ever has been and
ever shall be till "the last bird flies into the last
light"—some call it business, some call it art, some
call it love, and a very few know it for what it is, the
very mainspring of existence—the path of the pur-
suer and the prey often run obscurely parallel. What
time the Honorable William Linder matured his de-
signs on the mayoralty, Average Jones sat in a suite
of offices in Astor Court, a location which Waldemar
had advised as being central, expensive, and inspira-
tional of confidence, and considered, with a whirl-
ing brain, the minor woes of humanity. Other
people's troubles had swarmed down upon him in
answer to his advertised offer of help, as sparrows
flock to scattered bread crumbs. Mostly these were
of the lesser order of difficulties; but for what he
gave in advice and help the Ad-Visor took payment
in experience and knowledge of human nature. Still
it was the hard, honest study, and the helpful toil
which held him to his task, rather than the romance
and adventure which he had hoped for and Walde-


12 AVERAGE JONES
mar had foretold—until, in a quiet street in
Brooklyn, of which he had never so much as heard,
there befell that which, first of many events, justi-
fied the prophetic Waldemar and gave Average
Jones a part in the greater drama of the metrop-
olis. The party of the second part was the Honor-
able William Linden
Mr. Linder sat at five p. m., of an early summer
day, behind lock and bolt . The third floor front
room of his ornate mansion on Brooklyn's Park
Slope was dedicated to peaceful thought. Sprawled
in a huge and softly upholstered chair at the win-
dow, he took his ease in his house. The chair had
been a recent gift from an anonymous admirer
whose political necessities, the Honorable Mr. Lin-
der idly surmised, had not yet driven him to reveal
his identity. Its occupant stretched his shoeless
feet, as was his custom, upon the broad window-sill,
flooded by the seasonable warmth of sunshine, the
while he considered the ripening mayoralty situa-
tion. He found it highly satisfactory. In the lan-
guage of his inner man, it was a cinch.
Below, in Kennard Street, a solitary musician
plodded. His pretzel-shaped brass rested against
his shoulder. He appeared to be the "scout" of
one of those prevalent and melancholious German
bands, which, under Brooklyn's easy ordinances, are
privileged to draw echoes of the past writhing from


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 13
their forgotten recesses. The man looked slowly
about him as if apprising potential returns. His
gravid glance encountered the prominent feet in the
third story window of the Linder mansion, and
rested. He moved forward. Opposite the window
he paused. He raised the mouthpiece to his lips
and embarked on a perilous sea of notes from which
the tutored ear might have inferred that once popu-
lar ditty, Egypt.
Love of music was not one of the Honorable Wil-
liam Linder's attributes. An irascible temper was.
Of all instruments the B-flat trombone possesses the
most nerve-jarring tone. The master of the man-
sion leaped from his restful chair. Where his feet
had ornamented the coping his face now appeared.
Far out he leaned, and roared at the musician be-
low. The brass throat blared back at him, while
the soloist, his eyes closed in the ecstasy of art,
brought the "verse" part of his selection to an ex-
cruciating conclusion, half a tone below pitch. Be-
fore the chorus there was a brief pause for effect.
In this pause, from Mr. Linder's open face a voice
fell like a falling star. Although it did not cry
"Excelsior," its output of vocables might have been
mistaken, by a casual ear, for that clarion call.
What the Honorable Mr. Linder actually shouted
was:
"Gettahelloutothere!"


14 AVERAGE JONES
The performer upturned a mild and vacant face.
"Vhat you say?" he inquired in a softly Teutonic
accent.
The Honorable William Linder made urgent ges-
tures, like a brakeman.
"Go away! Move on!"
The musician smiled reassuringly.
"I got already paid for this," he explained.
Up went the brass to his lips again. The tonal
stairway which leads up to the chorus of Egypt
rose in rasping wail fulness. It culminated in an
excessive, unendurable, brazen shriek—and the Hon-
orable William Tinder experienced upon the unde-
fended rear of his person the most violent kick of a
lifetime not always devoted to the arts of peace. It
projected him clear of the window-sill. His last
sensible vision was the face of the musician, the
mouth absurdly hollow and pursed above the sud-
denly removed mouthpiece. Then an awning inter-
cepted the politician's flight. He passed through
this, penetrated a second and similar stretch of can-
vas shading the next window below, and lay placid
on his own front steps with three ribs caved in and
a variegated fracture of the collar-bone. By the
time the descent was ended the German musician
had tucked his brass under his arm and was hurry-
ing, in panic, down the street, his ears still ringing
with the concussion which had blown the angry


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 15
householder from his own front window. He was
intercepted by a running policeman.
"Where was the explosion?" demanded the of-
ficer.
"Explosion? I hear a noise in the larch house on
the corner," replied the musician dully.
The policeman grabbed his arm. "Come along
back. You fer a witness! Come on; you an' yer
horn."
"It iss not a hom," explained the German pa-
tiently, "it iss a B-flat trombone."
Along with several million other readers, Aver-
age Jones followed the Linder "bomb outrage"
through the scandalized head-lines of the local press.
The perpetrator, declared the excited journals, had
been skilful. No clue was left. The explosion
had taken care of that. The police (with the char-
acteristic stupidity of a corps of former truck-driv-
ers and bartenders, decorated with brass buttons
and shields and without further qualification dubbed
"detectives") vacillated from theory to theory.
Their putty-and-pasteboard fantasies did not long
survive the Honorable William Linder's return to
consciousness and coherence. An "inside job," they
had said. The door was locked and bolted, Mr.
Linder declared, and there was no possible place for
an intruder to conceal himself. Clock-work, then.
"How would any human being guess what time


16 AVERAGE JONES
to set it for," demanded the politician in disgust,
"when I never know, myself, where I'm going to be
at any given hour of any given day?"
"Then that Dutch horn-player threw the bomb,"
propounded the head of the "Detective Bureau"
ponderously.
"Of course; tossed it right up, three stories, and
kept playing his infernal trombone with the other
hand all the time. You ought to be carrying a hod!"
Nevertheless, the police hung tenaciously to the
theory that the musician was involved, chiefly be-
cause they had nothing else to hang to. The explo-
sion had been very localized, the room not generally
wrecked; but the chair which seemed to be the cen-
ter of disturbance, and from which the Honorable
William Linder had risen just in time to save his
life, was blown to pieces, and a portion of the floor
beneath it was much shattered. The force of the
explosion had been from above the floor downward;
not up through the flooring. As to murderously
inclined foes, Mr. Linder disclaimed knowledge of
any. The notion that the trombonist had given a
signal he derided as an "Old Sleuth pipe-dream."
As time went on and "clues" came to nothing, the
police had no greater concern than quietly to for-
get, according to custom, a problem beyond their
limited powers. With the release of the German
musician, who was found to be simple-minded to


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 17
the verge of half-wittedness, public interest waned,
and the case faded out of current print.
Average Jones, who was much occupied with a
pair of blackmailers operating through faked photo-
graphs, about that time, had almost forgotten the
Linder case, when, one day, a month after the ex-
plosion, Waldemar dropped in at the Astor Court
offices. He found a changed Jones; much thinner
and "finer" than when, eight weeks before, he had
embarked on his new career, at the newspaper
owner's instance. The young man's color was less
pronounced, and his eyes, though alert and eager,
showed rings under them.
"You have found the work interesting, I take it,"
remarked the visitor.
"Ra-ather," drawled Average Jones appreci-
atively.
"That was a good initial effort, running down
the opium pill mail-order enterprise."
"It was simple enough as soon as I saw the catch-
word in the 'Wanted' line."
"Anything is easy to a man who sees," returned
the older man sententiously. "The open eye of the
open mind—that has more to do with real detective
work than all the deduction and induction and an-
alysis ever devised."
"It is the detective part that interests me most
in the game, but I haven't had much of it, yet. You


18 AVERAGE JONES
haven't run across any promising ads. lately, have
you?"
Waldemar's wide, florid brow wrinkled.
"I haven't thought or dreamed of anything for
a month but this infernal bomb explosion."
"Oh, the Linder case. You're personally inter-
ested?"
"Politically. It makes Linder's nomination cer-
tain. Persecution. Attempted assassination. He
becomes a near-martyr. I'm almost ready to be-
lieve that he planted a fake bomb himself."
"And fell out of a third-story window to carry
out the idea? That's pushing realism rather far,
isn't it?"
Waldemar laughed. "There's the weakness. Un-
less we suppose that he under-reckoned the charge
of explosive."
"They let the musician go, didn't they?"
"Yes. There was absolutely no proof against
him, except that he was in the street below. Besides,
he seemed quite lacking mentally."
"Mightn't that have been a sham?"
"Alienists of good standing examined him. They
reported him just a shade better than half-witted.
He was like a one-ideaed child, his whole being com-
prised in his ability, and ambition to play his B-flat
trombone."
"Well, if I needed an accomplice," said Average


20 AVERAGE JONES
some music. Thirty-fourth's the nearest station,
isn't it? Thanks. So long."
Waldemar rubbed his head thoughtfully as the
door slammed behind the speeding Ad-Visor.
"Now, what kind of a tune is he on the track of,
I wonder?" he mused. "I wish it hadn't struck him
until I'd had time to go over the Linder business
with him."
But while Waldemar rubbed his head in cogita-
tation and the Honorable William Linder, in his
Brooklyn headquarters, breathed charily, out of re-
spect to his creaking rib, Average Jones was follow-
ing fate northward.
Three Hundred East One Hundredth Street is
a house decrepit with a disease of the aged. Its
windowed eyes are rheumy. It sags backward on
gnarled joints. All its poor old bones creak when
the winds shake it. To Average Jones' inquiring
gaze on this summer day it opposed the secrecy of
a senile indifference. He hesitated to pull at its
bell-knob, lest by that act he should exert a dis-
ruptive force which might bring all the frail struc-
ture rattling down in ruin. When, at length, he
forced himself to the summons, the merest ghost
of a tinkle complained petulantly. from within
against his violence.
An old lady came to the door. She was sleek
and placid, round and comfortable. She did not


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 21
seem to belong in that house at all. Average Jones
felt as if he had cracked open one of the grisly
locust shells which cling lifelessly to tree trunks, and
had found within a plump and prosperous beetle.
"Was an advertisement for a trombone player in-
serted from this house, ma'am?" he inquired.
"Long ago," said she.
"Am I too late, then?"
"Much. It was answered nearly two months
;ince. I have never," said the old lady with convic-
tion, "seen such a frazzled lot of folks as B-flat trom-
bone players."
"The person who inserted the advertisement—"
"Has left. A month since."
"Could you tell where he went?"
"Left no address."
"His name was Telford, wasn't it?" said Average
Jones strategically.
"Might be," said the old lady, who had evidently
formed no favorable impression of her ex-lodger.
"But he called himself Ransom."
"He had a furnished room?"
"The whole third floor, furnished."
"Is it let now?"
"Part of it. The rear."
"I'll take the front room."
"Without even looking at it?"
"Yes."


22 AVERAGE JONES
"You're a queer young man. As to price?"
"Whatever you choose."
"You're a very queer young man. Are you a B-
flat trombone player?"
"I collect 'em," said Average Jones
"References?" said the old lady abruptly and with
suspicion.
"All varieties," replied her prospective lodger
cheerfully. "I will bring 'em to-morrow with my
grip-"
For five successive evenings thereafter Average
Jones sat in the senile house, awaiting personal re-
sponse to the following advertisement which he had
inserted in the Universal:
WANTED—B-flat trombonist. Must have had ex-
perience as street player. Apply between 8 and
10 p. M. R—, 300 East 1 ooth Street.
Between the ebb and flow of applicant musicians
he read exhaustively upon the unallied subjects of
trombones and high explosives, or talked with his
landlady, who proved to be a sociable person, not
disinclined to discuss the departed guest. "Ran-
som," his supplanter learned, had come light and
gone light. Two dress suit cases had sufficed to
bring in all his belongings. He went out but little,
and then, she opined with a disgustful sniff, for
purposes strictly alcoholic. Parcels came for him


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 23
occasionally. These were usually labeled "Glass.
Handle with care." Oh! there was one other thing.
A huge, easy arm-chair from Carruthers and Com-
pany, mighty luxurious for an eight-dollar lodger.
"Did he take that with him?" asked Average
Jones.
"No. After he had been here a while he had a
man come in and box it up. He must have sent it
away, but I never saw it go."
"Was this before or after the trombone players
came?"
"Long after. It was after he had picked out his
man and had him up here practising."
"Did—er—you ever—er—see this musician?"
drawled Average Jones in the slow tones of his pe-
culiar excitement.
"Bless you, yes! Talked with him."
"What was he like?"
"He was a stupid old German. I always thought
he was a sort of a natural."
"Yes?" Average Jones peered out of the win-
dow. "Is this the man, coming up the street?"
"It surely is," said the old lady. "Now, Mister
Jones, if he commences his blaring and blatting
and—"
"There'll be no more music, ma'am," promised
the young man, laughing, as she went out to answer
the door-bell.


24 AVERAGE JONES
The musician, ushered in, looked about him, an
expression of bewildered and childish surprise on
his rabbit-like face.
"I am Schlichting," he murmured; "I come to
play the B-flat trombone."
"Glad to see you, Mr. Schlichting," said Average
Jones, leading the way up-stairs. "Sit down."
The visitor put his trombone down and shook
his head with conviction.
"It iss the same room, yes," he observed. "But
it iss not the same gent, no."
"You expected to find Mr. Ransom here?"
"I don't know Mr. Ransom. I know only to play
the B-flat trombone."
"Mr. Ransom, the gentleman who employed you
to play in the street in Brooklyn."
Mr. Schlichting made large and expansive ges-
tures. "It iss a pleasure to play for such a gent,"
he said warmly. "Two dollars a day."
"You have played often in Kennard Street?"
"I don't know Kennard Street. I know only to
play the B-flat trombone."
"Kennard Street. In Brooklyn. Where the fat
gentleman told you to stop, and fell out of the win-
dow."
A look of fear overspread the worn and innocent
face.


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 25
"I don't go there no more. The po-lice, they take
me."
"But you had gone there before?"
"Not to play; no."
"Not to play? Are you sure?"
The German considered painfully. "There vass
no feet in the window," he explained, brightening.
Upon that surprising phrase Average Jones pon-
dered. "You were not to play unless there were feet
in the window," he said at length. "Was that it?"
The musician assented.
"It does look like a signal to show that Linder
was in," mused the interrogator. "Do you know
Mr. Linder?"
"I don't know nothing only to play the B-flat
trombone," repeated the other patiently.
"Now, Schlichting," said Average Jones, "here
is a dollar. Every evening you must come here.
Whether I am here or not, there will be a dollar for
you. Do you understand?"
By way of answer the German reached down and
lifted his instrument to his lips.
"No, not that," forbade Average Jones. "Put it
down."
"Not to play my B-flat trombone?" asked the
other, innocently hurt. "The other gent he make
me play here always."


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 27
And there his limitations were established. But
the old lady had something to add.
"It's all true that he said," she confirmed. "I
could hear his racket in the front room and Mr.
Ransom working in the back and then, after the
old man was gone, Mr. Ransom sweeping up some-
thing by himself."
"Sweeping? What—er—was he—er—sweep-
ing?"
"Glass, I think. The girl used to find little sliv-
ers of it first in one part of the room, then in
another. I raised the rent for that and for the
racket."
"The next thing," said Average Jones, "is to
find out where that big easy chair went from here.
Can you help me there?"
The old lady shook her head. "All I can do is to
tell you the near-by truckmen."
Canvass of the local trucking industry brought to
light the conveyor of that elegant article of furni-
ture. It had gone, Average Jones learned, not to the
mansion of the Honorable William Linder, as he
had fondly hoped, but to an obscure address not far
from the Navy Yard in Brooklyn. To this address,
having looked up and gathered in the B-flat trom-
bonist, Average Jones led the way. The pair lurked
in the neighborhood of the ramshackle house watch-
ing the entrance, until toward evening, as the door


28 AVERAGE JONES
opened to let out a tremulous wreck of a man, pal-
sied with debauch, Schlichting observed:
"That iss him. He hass been drinking again
once."
Average Jones hurried the musician around the
corner into concealment. "You have been here be-
fore to meet Mr. Ransom?"
"No."
"Where did he meet you to pay you your wages?"
"On some corner," said the other vaguely.
"Then he took you to the big house and left you
there," urged Jones.
"No; he left me on the street corner. 'When the
feet iss in the window,' he says, 'you play.'"
"It comes to this," drawled Average Jones in-
tently, looking the employee between his vacuous
eyes. "Ransom shipped the chair to Plymouth
Street and from there to Linder's house. He fig-
ured out that Linder would put it in his study and
do his sitting at the window in it. And you were
to know when he was there by seeing his feet in the
window, and give the signal when you saw him. It
must have been a signal to somebody pretty far off,
or he wouldn't have chosen so loud an instrument
as a B-flat trombone."
"I can play the B-flat trombone louder as any
man in the business," asserted Schlichting with
proud conviction.


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 29
"But what gets me," pursued Average Jones, "is
the purpose of the signal. Whom was it for?"
"I don't know nothing," said the other compla-
cently. "I only know to play the B-flat trombone
louder as any man in the world."
Average Jones paid him a lump sum, dismissed
him and returned to the Cosmic Club, there to pon-
der the problem, What next? To accuse Ransom,
the mysterious hirer of a B-flat trombone virtuosity,
without sufficient proof upon which to base even a
claim of cross-examination, would be to block his
own game then and there, for Ransom could, and
very likely would, go away, leaving no trace. Who
was Ransom, anyway? And what relation, if any,
did he bear to Linder?
Absorbed in these considerations, he failed to no-
tice that the club was filling up beyond its wont. A
hand fell on his shoulder.
"Hello, Average. Haven't seen you at a Saturday
special night since you started your hobby."
It was Bertram. "What's on?" Average Jones
asked him, shaking hands.
"Freak concert. Bellerding has trotted out part
of his collection of mediaeval musical instruments,
and some professionals are going to play them.
Waldemar is at our table. Come and join us."
Conversation at the round-table was general and
lively that evening, and not until the port came on—


30 AVERAGE JONES
the pride ful club port, served only on special occa-
sions and in wonderful, delicate glasses—did Aver-
age Jones get an opportunity to speak to Waldemar
aside.
"I've been looking into that Linder matter a
little."
"Indeed. I've about given up hope."
"You spoke of an old scandal in Linder's career.
What was the husband's name?"
"Arbuthnot, I believe."
"Do you know what sort of looking man he was?"
"No. I could find out from Washington."
"What was his business?"
"Government employment, I think."
"In the—er—scientific line, perhaps?" drawled
Jones.
"Why, yes, I believe it was."
"Um—m. Suppose, now, Linder should drop out
of the combination. Who would be the most likely
nominee?"
"Marsden—the man I've been grooming for the
place. A first-class, honorable, fearless man."
"Well, it's only a chance; but if I can get one
dark point cleared up—"
He paused as a curious, tingling note came from
the platform where the musicians were tuning up.
"One of Bellerding's sweet dulcets," observed
Bertram.


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 31
The performer nearest them was running a slow
bass scale on a sort of two-stringed horse-fiddle of
a strange shape. Average Jones' still untouched
glass, almost full of the precious port, trembled
and sang a little tentative response. Up—up—up
mounted the thrilling notes, in crescendo force.
"What a racking sort of tone, for all its sweet-
ness!"' said Average Jones. His delicate and frag-
ile port glass evidently shared the opinion, for,
without further warning, it split and shivered.
"They used to show that experiment in the lab-
oratory," said Bertram. "You must have had just
the accurate amount of liquid in the glass, Average.
Move back, you lunatic, it's dripping all over you."
But Average Jones sat unheeding. The liquor
dribbled down into his lap. He kept his fascinated
gaze fixed on the shattered glass. Bertram dabbed
at him with a napkin.
"Tha—a—anks, Bertram," drawled the benefi-
ciary of this attention. "Doesn't matter. Excuse
me. Good night."
Leaving his surprised companions, he took hat
and cane and caught a Third Avenue car. By the
time he had reached Brooklyn Bridge he had his
campaign mapped out. It all depended upon the
opening question. Average Jones decided to hit out
and hit quick.
At the house near the Navy Yard he learned that


32 AVERAGE JONES
his man was out. So he sat upon the front steps
while one of the highest-priced wines in New York
dried into his knees. Shortly before eleven a shuf-
fling figure paused at the steps, feeling for a key.
"Mr. Arbuthnot, otherwise Ransom?" said Aver-
age Jones blandly.
The man's chin jerked back. His jaw dropped.
"Would you like to hire another B-flat trombon-
ist?" pursued the young man.
"Who are you?" gasped the other. "What do
you want?"
"I want to know," drawled Average Jones, "how
—er—you planted the glass bulb—er—the sulphuric
acid bulb, you know—in the chair that you sent—
er—to the Honorable William Linder, so that—er
—it wouldn't be shattered by anything but the
middle C note of a B-flat trombone?"
The man sat down weakly and bowed his face in
his hands. Presently he looked up.
"I don't care," he said. "Come inside."
At the end of an hour's talk Arbuthnot. alias
Ransom, agreed to everything that Average Jones
proposed.
"Mind you," he said, "I don't promise I won't
kill him later. But meantime it'll be some satisfac-
tion to put him down and out politically. You can
find me here any time you want me. You say you'll
see Linder to-morrow?"


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 33
"To-morrow," said Average Jones. "Look in
the next day's papers for the result."
Setting his telephone receiver down the Honor-
able William Linder lost himself in conjecture. He
had just given an appointment to his tried and true,
but quite impersonal enemy, Mr. Horace Waldemar.
"What can Waldemar want of me?" ran his
thoughts. "And who is this friend, Jones, that he's
bringing? Jones? Jones! Jones?!" He tried it in
three different accents, without extracting any par-
ticular meaning therefrom. "Nothing much in the
political game," he decided.
It was with a mingling of gruffness and dignity
that he greeted Mr. Waldemar an hour later. The
introduction to Average Jones he acknowledged
with a curt nod.
"Want a job for this young man, Waldemar?"
he grunted.
"Not at present, thank you," returned the news-
paper owner. "Mr. Jones has a few arguments to
present to you—"
".Arguments," repeated the Honorable William
Linder contemptuously. "What kind of argu-
ments?"
"Political arguments. Mayoralty, to be specific.
To be more specific still, arguments showing why
you should drop out of the race."


34 AVERAGE JONES
"A pin-feather reformer, eh?"
The politician turned to meet Average Jones'
steady gaze and mildly inquiring smile.
"Do you—er—know anything of submarine
mines, Mr. Linder?" drawled the visitor.
"Huh?" returned the Honorable William Linder,
startled.
"Submarine mines," explained the other. "Mines
■—in—the—sea, if you wish words of one syllable."
The lids of the Honorable Linder contracted.
"You're in the wrong joint," he said, "this ain't
the Naval College."
"Thank you. A submarine mine is a very ingen-
ious affair. I've recently been reading somewhat
extensively on the subject. The main charge is
some high explosive, usually of the dynamite type.
Above it is a small jar of sulphuric acid. Teeth,
working on levers, surround this jar. The levers
project outside the mine. When a ship strikes the
mine, one or more of the levers are pressed in. The
teeth crush the jar. The sulphuric acid drops upon
the main charge and explodes it. Do you follow
me?"
"I'll follow you as far as the front door," said
the politician balefully. He rose.
"If the charge were in a chair, in the cushion of
an easy chair, we'll say, on the third floor of a house
in Brooklyn—"


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 35
The Honorable William Linder sat down again.
He sat heavily.
"—the problem would be somewhat different. Of
course, it would be easy to arrange that the first
person to sit down in the chair. would, by his own
weight, blow himself up. But the first person might
not be the right person, you know. Do you still
follow me?"
The Honorable William Linder made a remark
like a fish.
"Now, we have, if you will forgive my profes-
sorial method," continued Average Jones, "a chair
sent to a gentleman of prominence from an anony-
mous source. In this chair is a charge of high
explosive and above it a glass bulb containing sul-
phuric acid. The bulb, we will assume, is so safe-
guarded as to resist any ordinary shock of moving.
But when this gentleman, sitting at ease in his chair,
is noticed by a trombonist, placed for that purpose
in the street, below—"
"The Dutch horn-player!" cried the politician.
"Then it was him; and I'll—"
"Only an innocent tool," interrupted Average
Jones, in his turn. "He had no comprehension of
what he was doing. He didn't understand that the
vibration from his trombone on one particular note
of the slide up the scale—as in the chorus of Egypt
—would shiver that glass and set off the charge.


36 AVERAGE JONES
All that he knew was to play the B-flat trombone
and take his pay."
"His pay?" The question leaped to the poli-
tician's lips. "Who paid him?"
"A—man — named — er—Arbuthnot," drawled
Average Jones.
Lindcr's eyes did not drop, but a film seemed to
be drawn over them.
"You once knew—er—a Mrs. Arbuthnot?"
The thick shoulders quivered a little.
"Her husband—her widower—is in Brooklyn.
Shall I push the argument any further to convince
you that you'd better drop out of the mayoralty
race?"
Linder recovered himself a little. "What kind of
a game are you ringing in on me?" he demanded.
"Don't you think," suggested Average Jones
sweetly, "that considered as news, this—"
Linder caught the word out of his mouth.
"News!" he roared. "A fake story ten years old,
news? That ain't news! It's spite work. Even
your dirty paper, Waldemar, wouldn't rake that
kind of muck up after ten years. It'd be a boomer-
ang. You'll have to put up a stronger line of black-
mail and bluff than that."
"Blackmail is perhaps the correct word tech-
nically," admitted the newspaper owner, "but bluff
'—there you go wrong. You've forgotten one


THE B-FLAT TROMBONE 37
thing; that Arbuthnot's arrest and confession would
make the whole story news. We stand ready to ar-
rest Arbuthnot, and he stands ready to confess."
There was a long, tense minute of silence.
Then—
"What do you want?" The straight-to-the-point
question was an admission of defeat
.
"Your announcement of withdrawal. I'd rather
print that than the Arbuthnot story."
There was a long silence. Finally the Honorable
William Linder dropped his hand on the table,
palm up.
"You win," he declared curtly. "But you'll give
me the benefit, in the announcement, of bad health
caused by the shock of the explosion, to explain my
quitting, Waldemar?"
"It will certainly make it more plausible," as-
sented the newspaper owner with a smile.
Linder turned on Average Jones.
"Did you dope this out, young fellow?" he de-
manded.
"Yes."
"Well, you've put me in the Down-and-Out-Club,
all right And I'm just curious enough to want to
know how you did it."
"By abstaining," returned Average Jones cryp-
tically, "from the best wine that ever came out of
the Cosmic Club cellar."


CHAPTER II
RED DOT
FROM his inner sanctum, Average Jones stared
obliquely out upon the whirl of Fifth Avenue,
warming itself under a late March sun.
In the outer offices a line of anxious applicants
was being disposed of by his trained assistants. To
the advertising expert's offices had come that day
but three cases difficult enough to be referred to the
Ad-Visor himself. Two were rather intricate finan-
cial lures which Average Jones was able to dispose
of by a mere "Don't." The third was a Spiritualist
announcement behind which lurked a shrewd plot to
entrap a senile millionaire into a marriage with the
medium. These having been settled, the expert
was free to muse upon a paragraph which had ap-
peared in all the important New York morning
papers of the day before.
REWARD—$1,000 reward for information as to
slayer of Brindle Bulldog "Rags" killed in office
of Malcolm Dorr, Stengel Building, Union Square,
March 29.
38


RED DOT 39
"That's too much money for a dog," decided Av-
erage Jones. "Particularly one that hasn't any
bench record. I'll just have a glance into the
thing."
Slipping on his coat he walked briskly down the
avenue, and crossing over to Union Square, en-
tered the gloomy old building which is the sole
survival of the days when the Stengel estate fore-
saw the upward trend of business toward Fourteenth
Street. Stepping from the elevator at the seventh
floor, he paused underneath this sign:
Malcolm Dorr
Analytical and Consulting Chemist
Hours 10 to 4
Entering, Average Jones found a fat young man,
with mild blue eyes, sitting at a desk.
"Mr. Dorr?" he asked.
"Yes," replied the fat young man nervously, "but
if you are a reporter, I must—"
"I am not," interrupted the other. "I am an ex-
pert on advertising, and—I want that one thousand
dollars reward."
The chemist pushed his chair back and rubbed his
forehead.
"You mean you have—have found out some-
thing?"
"Not vet. But I intend to."


4o AVERAGE JONES
Dorr stared at him in silence.
"You are very fond of dogs, Mr. Dorr?"
"Eh? Oh, yes. Yes, certainly," said the other
mechanically.
Average Jones shot a sudden glance of surprise
at him, then looked dreamily at his own finger-nails.
"I can sympathize with you. I have exhibited
for some years. Your dog was perhaps a green-
ribboner?"
"Er—oh—yes; I believe so."
"Ah! Several of mine have been. One in par-
ticular, took medal after medal; a beautiful glossy
brown bulldog, with long silky ears, and the slender
splayed-out legs that are so highly prized but so
seldom seen nowadays. His tail, too, had the truly
Willoughby curve, from his dam, who was a fa-
mous courser."
Mr. Dorr looked puzzled. "I didn't know they
used that kind of dog for coursing," he said vaguely.
Average Jones smiled with almost affectionate
admiration at the crease along the knee of his care-
fully pressed trousers. His tone, when next he
spoke, was that of a youth bored with life. Any of
his intimates would have recognized in it, however,
the characteristic evidence that his mind was rang-
ing swift and far to a conclusion.
"Mr. Dorr," he drawled, "who—er—owned your
—er—dog?"


RED DOT 41
"Why, I—I did," said the startled chemist
.
"Who gave him to you?"
"A friend."
"Quite so. Was it that—er—friend who—er—
offered the reward?"
"What makes you think that?"
"This, to be frank. A man who doesn't know a
bulldog from a bed-spring isn't likely to be offering
a thousand dollars to avenge the death of one. And
the minute you answered my question as to whether
you cared for dogs, I knew you didn't. When you
fell for a green ribbon, and a splay-legged, curly-
tailed medal-winner in the brindle bull class (there's
no such class, by the way), I knew you were bluf-
fing. Mr. Dorr, who—er—has been—er—threaten-
ing your life?"
The chemist swung around in his chair.
"What do you know?" he demanded.
"Nothing. I'm guessing. It's a fair guess that a
reasonably valuable brindle bull isn't presented to
a man who cares nothing for dogs without some
reason. The most likely reason is protection. Is it
in your case?"
"Yes, it is," replied the other, after some hesita-
tion.
"And now the protection is gone. Don't you
think you'd better let me in on this?"
"Let me speak to my—my legal adviser first."


42 AVERAGE JONES
He called up a down-town number on the telephone
and asked to be connected with Judge Elverson.
"I may have to ask you to leave the office for a mo-
ment," he said to his caller.
"Very well. But if that is United States District
Attorney Roger Elverson, tell him that it is A. V.
R. Jones who wants to know, and remind him of
the missing letter opium advertisement."
Almost immediately Average Jones was called
back from the hallway, whither he had gone.
"Elverson says to tell you the whole thing," said
the chemist—"in confidence, of course."
"Understood. Now, who is it that wants to get
rid of you?"
"The Paragon Pressed Meat Company."
Average Jones became vitally concerned in re-
moving an infinitesimal speck from his left cuff.
"Ah," he commented, "the Canned Meat Trust
.
What have you been doing to them?"
"Sold them a preparation of my invention for
deodorizing certain by-products used for manufac-
turing purposes. Several months ago I found they
were using it on canned meats that had gone bad,
and then selling the stuff."
"Would the meat so treated be poisonous?"
"Well—dangerous to any one eating it habitually.
I wrote, warning them that they must stop."
"Did they reply?"


RED DOT 43
"A man came to see me and told me I was mis-
taken. He hinted that if I thought my invention
was worth more than I'd received, his principals
would be glad to take the matter up with me.
Shortly after I heard that the Federal authorities
were going after the Trust, so I called on Mr. Elver-
son.
"Mistake Number One. Elverson is straight, but
his office is fuller of leaks than a sieve."
"That's probably why I found my private labora-
tory reeking of cyanide fumes a fortnight later,"
remarked Dorr dryly. "I got to the outer air alive,
but not much more. A week later there was an ex-
plosion in the laboratory. I didn't happen to be
there at the time. The odd feature of the explosion
was that I hadn't any explosive drugs in the place."
"Where is this laboratory?"
"Over in Flatbush, where I live—or did live.
Within a month after that, a friendly neighbor took
a pot-shot at a man who was sneaking up behind
me as I was going home late one night. The man
shot, too, but missed me. I reported it to the police,
and they told me to be sure and not let the news-
papers know. Then they forgot it."
Average Jones laughed. "Of course they did.
Some day New York will find out that 'the fines*
police force in the world' is the biggest sham out-
side the dime museum business. Except in the case


44 AVERAGE JONES
of crimes by the regular, advertised criminals,
they're as helpless as babies. Didn't you take any
other precautions?"
"Oh, yes. I reported the attempt to Judge Elver-
son. He sent a secret service man over to live with
me. Then I got a commission out in Denver. When
I came back, about a month ago, Judge Elverson
gave me the two dogs."
"Two?"
"Yes. Rags and Tatters."
"Where's Tatters?"
"Dead. By the same road as Rags."
"Killed at your place in Flatbush?"
"No. Right here in this room."
Average Jones became suddenly very much wor-
ried about the second button of his coat. Having
satisfied himself of its stability, he drawled, "Er—
both of—er—them?"
"Yes. Ten days apart."
"Where were you?"
"On the spot. That is, I was here when Tatters
got his death. I had gone to the wash-room at the
farther end of the hall when Rags was poisoned."
"Why do you say poisoned?"
"What else could it have been? There was no
wound on either of the dogs."
"Was there evidence of poison?"
"Pathological only. In Tatters' case it was very


RED DOT 45
marked. He was dozing in a corner near the radi-
ator when I heard him yelp and saw him snapping
at his belly. He ran across the room, lay down and
began licking himself. Within fifteen minutes he
began to whine. Then he stiffened out in a sort of
spasm. It was like strychnine poisoning. Before
I could get a veterinary here he was dead."
"Did you make any examination?"
"I analyzed the contents of his stomach, but did
not obtain positive results."
"What about the other dog?"
"Rags? That was the day before yesterday. We
had just come over from Flatbush and Rags was
nosing around in the corner—"
"Was it the same corner where Tatters was at-
tacked?"
"Yes; near the radiator. He seemed to be inter-
ested in something there when I left the room. I
was gone not more than two minutes."
"Lock the door after you?"
"It has a special spring lock which I had put on
myself."
Average Jones crossed over and looked at the con-
trivance. Then his glance fell to a huge, old-fash-
ioned keyhole below the new fastening.
"You didn't use that larger lock?"
"No. I haven't for months. The key is lost, I
think."


46 AVERAGE JONES
Retracing his steps the investigator sighted the
hole from the radiator, and shook his head.
"It's not in range," he said. "Go on."
"As I reached the door on my return, I heard
Rags yelp. You may believe I got to him quickly.
He was pawing wildly at his nose. I called up the
nearest veterinary. Within ten minutes the convul-
sions came on. The veterinary was here when Rags
died, which was within fifteen minutes of the first
spasm. He didn't believe it was strychnine. Said
the attacks were different. Whatever it was, I
couldn't find any trace of it in the stomach. The
veterinary took the body away and made a com-
plete autopsy."
"Did he discover anything?"
"Yes. The blood was coagulated and on the up-
per lip he found a circle of small pustules. He
agreed that both dogs probably swallowed some-
thing that was left in my office, though I don't see
how it could have got there."
"That won't do," returned Average Jones posi-
tively. "A dog doesn't cry out when he swallows
poison, unless it's some corrosive."
"It was no corrosive. I examined the mouth."
"What about the radiator?" asked Average Jones,
getting down on his knees beside that antiquated
contrivance. "It seems to have been the center of
disturbance."


RED DOT 47
"If you're thinking of fumes," replied the chem-
ist, "I tested for that. It isn't possible."
"No; I suppose not. And yet, there's the curious
feature that the fatal influence seems to have ema-
nated from the corner which is the most remote
from both windows and door. Are your windows
or transom left open at night?"
"The windows, sometimes. The transom is kept
double-bolted."
"Do they face any other windows near by?"
"You can see for yourself that they don't."
"There's no fire-escape and it's too far up for
anything to come in from the street." Average
Jones examined the walls with attention and re-
turned to the big keyhole, through which he peeped.
"Do you ever chew gum?" he asked suddenly.
The chemist stared at him. "It isn't a habit of
mine," he said.
"But you wouldn't have any objection to my
sending for some, in satisfaction of a sudden irre-
sistible craving?"
"Any particular brand? I'll 'phone the corner
drug store."
"Any sort will suit, thank you."
When the gum arrived, Average Jones, after po-
litely offering some to his host, chewed up a single
stick thoroughly. This he rolled out to an extremely
tenuous consistency and spread it deftly across the


48 AVERAGE JONES
unused keyhole, which it completely though thinly
veiled.
"Now, what's that for?" inquired the chemist,
eying the improvised closure with some contempt.
"Don't know, exactly, yet," replied the deviser
cheerfully. "But when queer and fatal things hap-
pen in a room and there's only one opening, it's just
as well to keep your eye on that, no matter how
small it is. Better still, perhaps, if you'd shift your
office."
The fat young chemist pushed his hair back,
looked out of the window, and then turned to Av-
erage Jones. The rather flabby lines of his face had
"Abruptly hardened over the firm contour below.
"No. I'm hanged if I will," he said simply.
An amiable grin overspread Average Jones' face.
"You've got more nerve than prudence," he ob-
served. "But I don't say you aren't right. Since
you're going to stick to the ship, keep your eye on
that gum. If it lets go its hold, wire me."
"All right," agreed young Mr. Dorr. "Whatever
your little game is, I'll play it. Give me your ad-
dress in case you leave town."
"As I may do. I am going to hire a press-clipping
bureau on special order to dig through the files of
the local and neighboring city newspapers for re-
cent items concerning dog-poisoning cases. If our
unknown has devised a new method of canicide, it's


RED DOT 49
quite possible he may have worked it somewhere
else, too. Good-by, and if you can't be wise, be
careful."
Dog-poisoning seemed to Average Jones to have
become a popular pastime in and around New York,
judging from the succession of news items which
poured in upon him from the clipping bureau. Sev-
eral days were exhausted by false clues. Then one
morning there arrived, among other data, an article
from the Bridgeport Morning Delineator which
caused the Ad-Visor to sit up with a jerk. It de-
tailed the poisoning of several dogs under peculiar
circumstances. Three hours later he was in the
bustling Connecticut city. There he took carriage
for the house of Mr. Curtis Fleming, whose valu-
able Great Dane dog had been the last victim.
Mr. Curtis Fleming revealed himself as an elderly
gentleman all grown to a point: pointed white nose,
eyes that were pin-points of irascible gleam, and a
most pointed manner of speech.
"Who are you?" he demanded rancidly, as his
visitor was ushered in.
Average Jones recognized the type. He knew of
but one way to deal with it.
"Jones!" he retorted with such astounding em-
phasis that the monosyllable fairly exploded in the
other's face.
"Well, well, well," said the elder man, his aspect


50 AVERAGE JONES
suddenly mollified. "Don't bite me. What kind of
a Jones are you, and what do you want of me?"
"Ordinary variety of Jones. I want to know
'about your dog."
"Reporter?"
"No"
"Glad of it . They're no good. Had my reporters
on this case. Found nothing."
"Your reporters?"
"I own the Bridgeport Delineator."
"What about the dog?"
"Good boy!" approved the old martinet. "Sticks
to his point. Dog was out walking with me day be-
fore yesterday. Crossing a vacant lot on next
square. Chased a rat. Rat ran into a heap of old
timber. Dog nosed around. Gave a yelp and came
back to me. Had spasm. Died in fifteen minutes.
And hang me, sir," cried the old man, bringing his
fist down on Average Jones' knee, "if I see how
the poison got him, for he was muzzled to the snout,
sir!"
"Muzzled? Then—er—why do you—er—sug-
gest poison?" drawled the young man.
"Fourth dog to go the same way in the last
week."
"All in this locality?"
"Yes, all on Golden Hill."
"Any suspicions?"


RED DOT si
"Suspicions? Certainly, young man, certainly.
Look at this."
Average Jones took the smutted newspaper proof
which his host extended, and read:
WARNING—Residents of the Golden Hill neighbor-
hood are earnestly cautioned against unguarded
handling of timber about woodpiles or outbuildings
until further notice. Danger!"
"When was this published?"
"Wasn't published. Delineator refused it.
Thought it was a case of insanity."
"Who offered it?"
"Professor Moseley. Tenant of mine. Frame
house on the next corner with old-fashioned con-
servatory."
"How long ago?"
"About a week."
"All the dogs you speak of died since then?"
"Yes."
"Did he give any explanation of the advertise-
ment?"
"No. Acted half-crazy when he brought it to the
office, so the business manager said. Wouldn't
sign his name to the thing. Wouldn't say anything
about it. Begged the manager to let him have the
weather reports in advance, every day. The man-
ager put the advertisement in type, decided not to
run it, and returned the money."


52 AVERAGE JONES
"Weather reports, eh?" Average Jones mused for
a moment. "How long was the ad. to run?"
"Until the first hard frost."
"Has there—er—been a—er—frost since?"
drawled Average Jones.
"No."
"Who is this Moseley?"
"Don't know much about him. Scientific experi-
menter of some kind, I believe. Very exclusive,"
added Mr. Curtis Fleming, with a grin. "Never as-
sociated with any of us neighbors. Rent on the
nail, though. Insane, too, I think. Writes letters
to himself with nothing in them."
"How's that?" inquired Average Jones.
The other took an envelope from his pocket and
handed it over. "It got enclosed by mistake with
the copy for the advertisement. The handwriting
on the envelope is his own. Look inside."
A glance had shown Average Jones that the letter
had been mailed in New York on March twenty-
fifth. He took out the enclosure. It was a small
slip of paper. The date was stamped on with a
rubber stamp. There was no writing of any kind.
Near the center of the sheet were three dots. They
seemed to have been made with red ink.
"You're sure the address is in Professor Mose-
ley's writing?"
"I'd swear to it."


RED DOT 53
"It doesn't follow that he mailed it to himself.
In fact, I should judge that it was sent by some
one who was particularly anxious not to have any
specimen of his handwriting lying about for identi-
fication."
"Perhaps. What's your interest in all this, any-
way, my mysterious young friend?"
"Two dogs in New York poisoned in something
the same way as yours."
"Well, I've got my man. He confessed."
"Confessed?" echoed Average Jones.
"Practically. I've kept the point of the story to
the last. Professor Moseley committed suicide this
morning."
If Mr. Curtis Fleming had designed to make an
impression on his visitor, his ambition was fulfilled.
Average Jones got to his feet slowly, walked over
to the window, returned, picked up the strange
proof with its message of suggested peril, studied
it, returned to the window, and stared out into the
gray day.
"Cut his throat about nine o'clock this morning,"
pursued the other. "Dead when they found him."
"Do you mind not talking to me for a minute?"
said Average Jones curtly.
"Told to hold my tongue in my own house by an
uninvited stripling," cackled the other. "You're a
singular young man. Have it your own way."


54 AVERAGE JONES
v
After a five minutes' silence the visitor turned
from the window and spoke. "There has been a
deadly danger loose about here for which Professor
Moseley felt himself responsible. He has killed
himself. Why?"
"Because I was on his trail," declared Mr. Curtis
Fleming. "Afraid to face me."
"Nonsense. I believe some human being has
been killed by this thing, whatever it may be, and
that the horror of it drove Moseley to suicide."
"Prove it."
"Give me a morning paper."
His host handed him the current issue of the
Delineator.
Average Jones studied the local page.
"Where's Galvin's Alley?" he asked presently.
"Two short blocks from here."
"In the Golden Hill section?"
"Yes."
"Read that."
Mr. Curtis Fleming took the paper. His eyes were
directed to a paragraph telling of the death of an
Italian child living in Galvin's Alley. Cause, con-
vulsions.
"By jove!" said he, somewhat awed. "You can
reason, young man."
"I've got to reason a lot further, if I'm to get
anywhere in this affair," said Average Jones with


RED DOT 55
conviction. "Do you care to come to Galvin's Alley
with me?"
Together they went down the hill to a poor little
house, marked by white crepe. The occupants were
Italians who spoke some English. They said that
four-year-old Pietro had been playing around a
woodpile the afternoon before, when he was taken
sick and came home, staggering. The doctor could
do nothing. The little one passed from spasm into
spasm, and died in an hour.
"Was there a mark like a ring anywhere on the
hand or face?" asked Average Jones.
The dead child's father looked surprised. That,
he said, was what the strange gentleman who had
come that very morning asked; a queer, bent little
gentleman, very bald and with big eye-glasses, who
was kind, and wept with them and gave them money
to bury the "bambino."
"Moseley, by the Lord Harry!" exclaimed Mr.
Curtis Fleming. "But what was the death-agent?"
Average Jones shook his head. "Too early to
do more than guess. Will you take me to Professor
Moseley's place?"
The old house stood four-square, with a patched-
up conservatory on one wing. In the front room
they found the recluse's body decently disposed,
with an undertaker's assistant in charge. From
the greenhouse came a subdued hissing.


56 AVERAGE JONES
"What's that?" asked Jones.
"Fumigating the conservatory. There was a note
found near the body insisting on its being done.
'For safety,' it said, so I ordered it looked to."
"You're in charge, then?"
"It's my house. And there are no relatives so far
as I know. Come and look at his papers. You
won't find much."
In the old-fashioned desk was a heap of unde-
cipherable matter, interspersed with dates, appar-
ently bearing upon scientific experiments; a package
of letters from the Denny Research Laboratories of
St. Louis, mentioning enclosure of checks; and three
self-addressed envelopes bearing New York post-
marks, of dates respectively, March 12, March 14
and March 20. Each contained a date-stamped
sheet of paper, similar to that which Mr. Curtis
Fleming had shown to Average Jones. The one of
earliest date bore two red dots; the second, three red
dots, and the third, two. All the envelopes were en-
dorsed in Professor Moseley's handwriting; the first
with the one word "Filled." The second writing was
"Held for warmer weather." The last was in-
scribed "One in poor condition."
Of these Average Jones made careful note, as
well as of the laboratory address. By this time the
hissing of the fumigating apparatus had ceased. The
two men went to the conservatory and gazed in


RED DOT 57
upon a ruin of limp leaves and flaccid petals, killed
by the powerful gases. Suddenly, with an exclama-
tion of astonishment, the investigator stooped and
lifted from the floor a marvel of ermine body and
pale green wings. The moth, spreading nearly a
foot, was quite dead.
"Here's the mate, sir," said the fumigating ex-
pert, handing him another specimen, a trifle smaller.
"The place was crowded with all kinds of pretty
ones. All gone where the good bugs go now."
Average Jones took the pair of moths to the desk,
measured them and laid them carefully away in a
drawer.
"The rest must wait," he said. "I have to send a
telegram."
With the interested Mr. Curtis Fleming in at-
tendance, he went to the telegraph office, where he
wrote out a despatch.
"Mr. A. V. R. Jones?" said the operator.
"There's a message here for you."
Average Jones took the leaflet and read:
"Found gum on floor this morning when I ar-
rived. Malcolm Dorr."
Then he recalled his own blank, tore it up, and
substituted the following, which he ordered
"rushed:"


58 AVERAGE JONES
"Malcolm Dorr, Stengel Building, New York
City:
"Leave office immediately. Do not return until it
has been fumigated thoroughly. Imperative.
"A V. R. Jones."
"And now," said Average Jones to Mr. Fleming,
"I'm going back to New York. If any collectors
come chasing to you for luna moths, don't deal with
them. Refer them to me, please. Here is my card."
"Your orders shall be obeyed," said the older
man, his beady eyes twinkling. "But why, in the
name of all that's unheard of, should collectors come
bothering me about luna moths?"
"Because of an announcement to this effect which
will appear in the next number of the National
Science Weekly, and in coming issues of the New
York Evening Register."
He handed out a rough draft of this advertise-
ment:
"For Sale—Two largest known specimens of
Tropaea luna, unmounted; respectively 10 and 11J4
inches spread. Also various other specimens from,
collection of late Gerald Moseley, of Bridgeport,/
Conn. Write for particulars. Jones, Room 222,
Astor Court Temple, New York."
"What about further danger here?" inquired Mr.
Fleming, as Average Jones bade him good-by.


RED DOT 59
"Would we better run that warning of poor Mose-
ley's, after all?"
For reply Jones pointed out the window. A late-
season whirl of snow enveloped the streets.
"I see," said the old man. "The frost. Well,
Mr. Mysterious Jones, I don't know what you're
up to, but you've given me an interesting day. Let
me know what comes of it."
On the train back to New York, Average Jones
wrote two letters. One was to the Denny Research
Laboratories in St . Louis, the other to the Depart-
ment of Agriculture at Washington. On the fol-
lowing morning he went to Dorr's office. That
young chemist was in a recalcitrant frame of mind.
"I've done about ten dollars' worth of fumigat-
ing and a hundred dollars' worth of damage," he
said: "and now, I'd like to have a Missouri sign.
In other words, I want to be shown. What did
some skunk want to kill my dogs for?"
"He didn't"
"But they're dead, aren't they?"
"Accident."
"What kind of an accident?"
"The kind in which the innocent bystander gets
the worst of it. You're the one it was meant for."
"Me?"
"Certainly. You'd probably have got it if the
dogs hadn't."


60 AVERAGE JONES
The speaker examined the keyhole, then walked
over to the radiator and looked over, under and
through it minutely. "Nothing there," he observed;
and, after extending his examination to the win-
dows, book-shelf and desk, added:
"I guess we might have spared the fumigation.
However, the safest side is the best."
"What is it? Some new game in projective
germs?" demanded the chemist.
"Oh, disinfectants will kill other things besides
germs," returned Average Jones. "Luna moths, for
instance. Wait a few days and I'll have some mail
to show you on that subject. In the meantime, have
a plumber solder up that keyhole so tight that noth-
ing short of dynamite can get through it."
Collectors of lepidoptera rose in shoals to the
printed offer of luna moths measuring ten and
eleven inches across the wings. Letters came in by
every mail, responding variously with fervor, sus-
picion, yearning eagerness, and bitter skepticism to
Average Jones' advertisement. All of these he put
aside, except such as bore a New York postmark.
And each day he compared the new names signed to
the New York letters with the directory of occu-
pants of the Stengel Building. Less than a week
after the luna moth advertisement appeared, Aver-
age Jones walked into Malcolm Dorr's office with
a twinkling eye.


62 AVERAGE JONES
"As how?"
"Well, I expect to do three things. First, I expect
to scare a peaceful but murderous trust multimillion-
aire almost out of his senses; second, I expect to
despatch a costly yacht to unknown seas; and third,
I expect to raise the street selling price of the even-
ing "yellow" journals, temporarily, about one thou-
sand per cent. What's the answer? The answer is
—'Buy to-night's papers.'"
New York, that afternoon, saw something new in
advertising. That it really was advertising was
shown by the "Adv." sign, large and plain, in both
the papers which carried it. The favored journals
were the only two which indulged in "fudge" edi-
tions; that is, editions with glaring red-typed inserts
of "special" news. On the front page of each,
stretching narrowly across three columns, was a de-
vice showing a tiny mapped outline in black marked
Bridgeport, Conn., and a large skeleton draft of
Manhattan Island showing the principal streets.
From the Connecticut city downward ran a line of
dots in red. The dots entered New York from the
north, passed down Fourth Avenue to the south side
of Union Square, turned west and terminated. Be-
neath this map was the legend, also in red:
WATCH THE LINE ADVANCE IN LATER
EDITIONS


RED DOT 63
It was the first time in the records of journalism
that the "fudge" device had been used in advertis-
ing.
Great was the rejoicing of the "newsies" when
public curiosity made a "run" upon these papers.
Greater it grew when the "afternoon edition" ap-
peared, and with their keen business instinct, the
urchins saw that they could run the price upward,
which they promptly did, in some cases even to a
nickel. This edition carried the same "fudge" ad-
vertisement, but now the red dots crossed over to
Fifth Avenue and turned northward as far as
Twenty-third Street. The inscription was:
UPWARD AND ONWARD
SEE NEXT EXTRA
For the "Night Extra" people paid five, ten, even
fifteen cents. Rumor ran wild. Other papers, even,
took the matter up as news, and commented upon the
meaning of the extraordinary advertisement. This
time, the red-dotted line went as far up Fifth Ave-
nue as Fiftieth Street. And the legend was omi-
nous:
WHEN I TURN, I STRIKE
That was all that evening. The dotted line did
not turn.


64 AVERAGE JONES
Keen as newspaper conjecture is, it failed to con-
nect the "red-line maps," with the fame of which the
city was raging, with an item of shipping news
printed in the evening papers of the following day:
CLEARED—For South American Ports, steam
yacht Electra, New York. Owner John M.
Colwell.
And not until the following morning did the pa-
pers announce that President Colwell, of the Canned
Meat Trust, having been ordered by his physician
on a long sea voyage to refurbish his depleted nerves,
after closing his house on West Fifty-first Street,
had sailed in his own yacht. The same issue carried
a few lines about the "freak ads." which had so sen-
sationally blazed and so suddenly waned from the
"yellows." The opinion was offered that they rep-
resented the exploitation of some new brand of
whisky which would announce itself later. But that
announcement never came, and President Colwell
sailed to far seas, and Mr. Curtis Fleming came to
New York, keen for explanations, for he, too, had
seen the "fudge" and marveled. Hence, Average
Jones had him, together with young Mr. Dorr, at
a private room luncheon at the Cosmic Club, where
he offered an explanation and elucidation.
"The whole affair," he said, "was a problem in
the connecting up of loose ends. At the New


RED DOT 65
York terminus we had two deaths in the office of a
man with powerful and subtle enemies, that office
being practically sealed against intrusion except for
a very large keyhole. Some deadly thing is intro-
duced through that keyhole; so much is practically
proven by the breaking out of the chewing gum with
which I coated it. Probably the scheme was carried
out in the evening when the building was nearly de-
serted. The killing influence reaches a corner far
out of the direct line of the keyhole. Being near
the radiator, that corner represents the attraction
of warmth. Therefore, the invading force was some
sentient creature."
Dorr shuddered. "Some kind of venomous
snake," he surmised.
"Not a bad guess. But a snake, however small,
would have been instantly noticed by the dogs. Now,
let's look at the Bridgeport end. Here, again, we
have a deadly influence loosed; this time by accident.
A scientific experimentalist is the innocent cause of
the disaster. Here, too, the peril is somewhat de-
pendent upon warmth, since we know, from Profes-
sor Moseley's agonized eagerness for a frost, that
cold weather would have put an end to it. The cold
weather fails to come. Dogs are killed. Finally
a child falls victim, and on that child is found a cir-
cular mark, similar to the mark on Mr. Dorr's dog's
lip. You see the striking points of analogy?"


66 AVERAGE JONES
"Do you mean us to believe poor old Moseley a
cold-blooded murderer?" demanded Mr. Curtis
Fleming.
"Far from it. At worst an unhappy victim of his
own carelessness in loosing a peril upon his neigh-
borhood. You're forgetting a connecting link; the
secretive red-dot communications from New York
City addressed by Moseley to himself on behalf of
some customer who ordered simply by a code of ink-
dots. He was the man I had to find. The giant luna
moths helped to do it."
"I don't see where they come in at all," declared
Dorr bluntly. "A moth a foot wide couldn't crawl
through a keyhole."
"No; nor do any damage if it did. The luna is
as harmless as it is lovely. In this case the moths
weren't active agents. They were important only as
clues—and bait. Their enormous size showed Pro-
fessor Moseley's line of work; the selective breed-
ing of certain forms of life to two or three times
the normal proportions. Very well; I had to ascer-
tain some creature which, if magnified several times,
would be deadly, and which would still be capable
of entering a large keyhole. Having determined
that—"
"You found what it was?" cried Dorr.
"One moment. Having determined that, I had
still to get in touch with Professor Moseley's mys-


RED DOT 67
terious New York correspondent. I figured that he
must be interested in Professor Moseley's particular
branch of research or he never could have devised
his murderous scheme. So I constructed the luna
moth advertisement to draw him, and when I got a
reply from Mr. Ross, who is a fellow-tenant of Mr.
Dorr's, the chain was complete. Now, you see where
the luna moths were useful. If I had advertised,
instead of them, the lathrodectus, he might have sus-
pected and refrained from answering."
"What's the lathrodectus?" demanded both the
hearers at once.
For answer Average Jones took a letter from his
pocket and read:
Bureau of Entomology,
U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Washington, D. C, April 7.
Mr. A. V. R. Jones,
Astor Court Temple, New York City.
Dear Sir—Replying to your letter of inquiry, the
only insect answering your specifications is a small
spider Lathrodectus mactans, sometimes popularly
called the Red Dot, from a bright red mark upon the
back. Rare cases are known where death has been
caused by the bite of this insect. Fortunately its
fangs are so weak that they can penetrate only very
tender skin, otherwise death from its bite would be
more common, as the venom, drop for drop, is per-
haps the most virulent known to science.
This Bureau knows nothing of any experiments


68 AVERAGE JONES
in breeding the Lathrodectus for size. Your surmise
that specimens of two or three times the normal size
would be dangerous to life is undoubtedly correct,
and selected breeding to that end should be con-
ducted only under adequate scientific safeguards. A
Lathrodectus mactans with fangs large enough to
penetrate the skin of the hand, and a double or triple
supply of venom, would be, perhaps, more deadly
than a cobra.
The symptoms of poisoning by this species are
spasms, similar to those of trismus, and agonizing
general pains. There are no local symptoms, ex-
cept, in some cases, a circle of small pustules about
the bitten spot.
Commercially, the Lathrodectus has value, in that
the poison is used in certain affections of the heart.
For details, I would refer you to the Denny Labora-
tories of St. Louis, Mo., which are purchasers of the
venom.
The species is very susceptible to cold, and would
hardly survive a severe frost. It frequents wood-
piles and outhouses. Yours truly,
L. O. Howard,
Chief of Bureau.
"Then Ross was sneaking down here at night and
putting the spiders which he had got from Professor
Moseley through my keyhole, in the hope that
sooner or later one of them would get me," said
Dorr.
"A very reasonable expectation, too. Vide, the
dogs," returned Average Jones.


RED DOT 69
"And now," said Mr. Curtis Fleming, "will some
one kindly explain to me what this Ross fiend had
against our friend, Mr. Dorr?"
"Nothing," replied Average Jones.
"Nothing? Was he coursing with spiders merely
for sport?"
"Oh, no. You see Mr. Dorr was interfering with
the machinery of one of our ruling institutions, the
Canned Meat Trust. He possessed information
which would have indicted all the officials. There-
fore it was desirable—even essential—that he should
be removed from the pathway of progress."
"Nonsense! Socialistic nonsense!" snapped Mr.
Curtis Fleming. "Trusts may be unprincipled, but
they don't commit individual crimes."
"Don't they?" returned Average Jones, smiling
amiably at his own boot-tip. "Did you ever hear of
Mr. Adel Meyer's little corset steel which he in-
vented to stick in the customs scales and rob the gov-
ernment for the profit of his Syrup Trust? Or of
the individual oil refineries which mysteriously dis-
appeared in fire and smoke at a time when they be-
came annoying to the Combination Oil Trust? Or
of the Traction Trust's two plots to murder Prose-
cutor Henry in San Francisco? I'm just mention-
ing a few cases from memory. Why, when a
criminal trust faces only loss it will commit forgery,
theft or arson. When it faces jail, it will commit


70 AVERAGE JONES
murder just as determinedly. Self-defense, you
know. As for the case of Mr. Dorr—" and he pro-
ceeded to detail the various attempts on the young
chemist's life.
"But why so roundabout a method?" asked Dorr
skeptically.
"Well, they tried the ordinary methods of mur-
der on you through agents. That didn't work. It
was up to the Trust to put one of its own confiden-
tial men on it. Ross is an amateur entomologist.
He devised a means that looked to be pretty safe
and, in the long run, sure."
"And would have been but for your skill, young
Jones," declared Mr. Curtis Fleming, with emphasis.
"Don't forget the fortunate coincidences," re-
plied Average Jones modestly. "They're about half
of it. In fact, detective work, for all that is said on
the other side, is mostly the ability to recognize and
connect coincidences. The coincidence of the escape
of the Red Dots from Professor Moseley's breeding
cages; the coincidence of the death of the dogs on
Golden Hill, followed by the death of the child; the
coincidence of poor Moseley's having left the red-
dot letters on the desk instead of destroying them;
the coincidence of Dorr's dogs being bitten, when it
might easily have been himself had he gone to turn
on the radiator and disturbed the savage little
spider—"


RED DOT 71
"And the chief coincidence of your having become
interested in the advertisement which Judge Elver-
son had me insert, really more to scare off further
attempts than anything else," put in Dorr. "What
became of the spiders that were slipped through my
keyhole, anyway?"
"Two of them, as you know, were probably killed
by the dogs. The others may well have died of cold
at night when the heat was off and the windows
open. The cleaning woman wouldn't have been
likely to notice them when she swept the bodies out.
And, sooner or later, if Ross had continued to insert
Red Dots through the keyhole one of them would
have bitten you, Dorr, and the Canned Meat Trust
would have gone on its way rejoicing."
"Well, you've certainly saved my life," declared
Dorr, "and it's a case of sheer force of reasoning."
Average Jones shook his head. "You might give
some of the credit to Providence," he said. "Just
one little event would have meant the saving of the
Italian child, and of Professor Moseley, and the
death of yourself, instead of the other way around."
"And that event?" asked Mr. Curtis Fleming.
"Five degrees of frost in Bridgeport," replied Av-
erage Jones.


CHAPTER III
t
OPEN TRAIL.
NOT good enough," said Average Jones, lay-
ing aside ai sheet of paper upon which was
pasted a newspaper clipping. "We can't afford lux-
uries, Simpson."
The confidential clerk rubbed his high, pale fore-
head indeterminately. "But five thousand dollars,
Mr. Jones," he protested.
"Would pay a year's office rent, you're thinking.
True. Nevertheless I can't see the missing Mr. Hoff
as a sound professional proposition."
"So you think it would be impossible to find
him?""
"Now, why should I think any such absurd thing?
I think, if you choose, that he wouldn't be worth the
amount, when found, to loser."
"The ad. says different, sir." Simpson raised the
paper and read:
"Five Thousand Dollars—The aforesaid sum
will be paid without question to anyone furnishing
information which leads to the discovery of Rod-
72


OPEN TRAIL 73
erick Hoff, twenty-four years old, who left his home
in Toledo, O., on April 12. Communicate with Dr.
Conrad Hoff, Toledo.
"Surely Doctor Hoff is good for the amount."
"Oh, he's good for millions, thanks to his much-
advertised quack 'Catarrh-Killer.' The point is,
from what I can discover, Mr. Roderick Hoff isn't
worth retrieving at any price above one dime."
"Was the information about him that you wished,
in the telegram?" asked the confidential clerk.
"Yes; all I wanted. Thanks for looking after it.
Have the Toledo reporter, who sent it, forward his
bill. And if the old inventor who's been haunted by
disembodied voices comes again, bring him to me."
"Yes, sir," said Simpson, going out.
Left to himself, Average Jones again ran over the
despatches, conveying the information as to the lost
Toledo youth. They had given a fairly complete
sketch of young Hoff's life and character. At twen-
ty-four, it appeared, Roderick Hoff had achieved a
career. Emerging, by the propulsive method, from
college, in the first term of his freshman year, he
had taken a post-graduate course in the cigarette
ward of a polite retreat for nervous wrecks. He had
subsequently endured two breach-of-promise suits,
had broken the state automobile record for number
of speed violation arrests, had been buncoed, bad-


74 AVERAGE JONES
gered, panelled, blackmailed and short-carded out
of sums varying between one hundred and ten thou-
sand dollars; and now, in the year of grace, 19—,
was the horror of the pulpit and the delight of the
press of the city which he called his home. For
the rest, he was a large, mild, good-humored, pulpy
individual, with a fixed delusion that the human or-
ganism can absorb a quart of alcoholic miscellany
per day and be none the worse for it. The major
premise of his proposition was perfectly correct. He
proved it daily. The minor premise was an error.
Bets were even in the Toledo clubs as to whether
delirium tremens or paresis would win the event
around young Mr. Hoff's kite-shaped race-track of
a brain.
With his tastes the income of twenty-five thou-
sand dollars per annum which his father allowed
him from the profits of "Dr. Hoff's Catarrh-Killer,"
proved sadly insufficient to his needs. He men-
tioned this fact to his father, so Average Jones'
information ran, early in April, and suggested an
increase, only to be refused with some acerbity.
"Oh, very well," said he, "I'll go and make it my-
self."
The amazement inspired in Doctor Hoff's mind
by this pronunciamento was augmented in the next
few days by the fact that Roderick was very busy
about town in his motor-car, and was changed to


OPEN TRAIL 75
vivid alarm immediately thereafter by the young
man's disappearance. To all intents and appear-
ances, Roderick Hoff had dropped off the earth on
or about April twelfth. By April fifteenth New
York, Pittsburg, Chicago, Washington and other
clearing-houses for the distribution of the unspent
increment were apprised of the elder Hoff's five-
thousand-dollar anxiety through the medium of the
daily press. This advertisement it was, upon the
practical merits of which Average Jones and his
confidential clerk had differed.
"If there were any chance of sport in it," mused
Average Jones, "I'd go in. But to follow the trail
of a spurious young sport from bar-room to brothel
and from brothel to gambling hell—" He shook his
head. "Not good enough," he repeated.
Simpson's face appeared at the door. His blond
forehead was wrinkled with excitement.
"Doctor Hoff is here, Mr. Jones. I told him you
couldn't see him, but he wouldn't take no. Says he
was recommended to you by a former client."
Following the word, there burst into Average
Jones' private sanctum a gross old man, silk-hatted
and bediamonded, whose side-whiskers bristled
whitely with perturbed self-importance. In his hand
was a patchy bundle.
"They tried to stop me!" he sputtered. "Me! I'm
worth ten million dollars, an' a ten-dollar-a-week


yS AVERAGE JONES
office toad tries to hold me up when I come here my-
self person'ly, from Toledo to see you."
Analysis of advertising in all its forms had in-
spired Average Jones with a profound contempt and
dislike for the crudest of all forms of swindling—
medical quackery. And this swollen, smug-faced in-
truder looked a particularly offensive specimen of
his kind. Therefore the Ad-Visor said curtly:
"I can't take your case. Good day."
"Not take it! Did you read the reward?"
"Yes. It is interesting as showing the patent
medicine faker's touching confidence in the power
of advertising. Otherwise it doesn't interest me.
Get some one else to find your young hopeful."
"It ain't no case of findin' now. The boy's dead."
His strident voice quavered and broke, but rose
again to a snarl. "And, by God, I'll spend a million
to get the dogs that murdered him."
At the word "murdered" Average Jones' clean-
cut, agreeable, but rather stolidly neutral face under-
went a subtle transformation. Another personality
looked out from the deep-set, somnolent, gray eyes;
a personality resolute, forceful and quietly alert. It
was apparently belied by the hesitant drawl, which,
as all who had ever seen the Ad-Visor at his chosen
pursuits well knew, signified awakened or intensified
interest in the matter in hand.
"Where—er—is—the—er—body?"








OPEN TRAIL 77
"I don't know. It ain't been found."
"Then how do you know he's dead?"
The other tore open the bundle he carried, and
spread before Average Jones a white silk shirt
stained with ominous brown splotches.
"It's his shirt. There's the initials. Mailed to my
house and got there just after I left. My seccattery
brought it on, with the note that come pinned to it
.
Here it is."
He produced a bit of coarse wrapping-paper
upon which was this message in rough capital letters:
TWO DAGrOeS 5HOTH/M JWSSfMT SAY*10
MORE TfcOfA A Tfc|£HP IH CINCIHWATI
Average Jones examined the wrapper. It was
postmarked Cincinnati. He next smoothed out the
creased silk and studied minutely the blotches, which
were heaviest about the left breast and shoulder.
To the surprise of Doctor Hoff, the young man's
glance roved the big desk before him, settling
with satisfaction upon a sponge-cup for moistening
stamps. Applying this to one of the spots on the
shirt, he rubbed the wetted portion vigorously on a
sheet of paper which lay near at hand. His lips
pursed. He whistled very softly and meditatively.
He scratched his chin with a slow movement.


78 AVERAGE JONES
"Is that all?" he shot out suddenly at the older
man.
"All! Ain't it enough? He's been murdered;
murdered, I tell you, an' you set there an' whistle!"
Average Jones directed a dreamy smile toward a
far corner of the room.
"I don't see anything so far," he observed, "to
indicate that your son is not alive and well at this
moment."
Doctor Hoff struck his fist down heavily on the
desk. "What's this you're givin' me? Can't you
read? Look at that note there, an' the blood on
the shirt."
"Would you mind moderating your voice? My
outside office is full of more or less excitable clients,"
said the Ad-Visor mildly. "Moreover, it's not blood
anyway."
"What is it, then?"
"That's beside the question. Dried blood rubs
off a faint buff color." He picked up the sheet of
paper from his desk. A deep brownish streak
showed where he had applied the moistened cloth.
"It's the rawest kind of a blind. Why, the idiot
who sent the shirt didn't even have the sense to fake
bullet holes. Enough to make one lose all interest
in the case," he added disgustedly.
Doctor Hoff began tugging at his side-whiskers.
"Don't do nothing like that," he pleaded. "Come


8o AVERAGE JONES
"Can you leave for Toledo on to-night's train?"
"You're goin' to take the case, then?" the quack
clawed nervously at his professional white whiskers.
"What's your terms?" he demanded.
"That I'm to have full control and that you're to
take orders and not give them."
Doctor Hoff swallowed that with a gulp. "You're
on," he said finally.
On the train Doctor Hoff regaled his companion
with a strictly paternal view of his son's character
and pursuits as he knew them. This served, at least,
to enlarge his auditor's ideas as to the average Amer-
ican father's vast and profound ignorance of the
life, habits, manners and customs of that common
but variable species, the Offspring. Beyond this it
had little value. Average Jones gave its author a
few specific instructions as to minor lines of home
investigation, and retired to map out a tentative
campaign.
His first call, on arriving at Toledo, was at the
business office of the Daily Saw, in which he in-
serted the following paragraph on a repeat-until-
stopped order:
WANTED—Instructor in Spanish. One with recent
experience preferred. Apply between 9 and 10
A. it. Doctor Hoff, 360 Fairfield Avenue.
Thence he climbed the stairs to the den of the


OPEN TRAIL 81
city editor, to whom he stated his errand openly,
being too wise in his day and generation to attempt
concealment or evasion with a newspaper man from
whom he wanted information. The city editor
obligingly furnished further details regarding
"Rickey" Hoff, as he called the young man, which,
while differing in important respects from Doctor
Hoff's, bore the ear-marks of superior accuracy.
"The worst of it is," said the newspaper man,
"that there are elements of decency about the young
cub, if he'd keep sober. He won't go into the old
boy's business, because he hates it. Says it's all rot
and lies. He's dead right, of course. But there's
nothing else for him to do, so he just fights booze.
Better make a few inquiries at Silent Charley's."
"What's that?"
"Quiet little bar kept by a talkative Swede.
'Rickey' Hoff hung out there a lot. Charley even
had a room fixed up for him to lay off in when he
was too pickled to go home."
"Would—er—young Hoff—er—perhaps keep a
few—er—extra clothes there?" asked Average
Jones, seemingly struggling with a yawn.
The city editor stared. "Oh, I dare say. He used
to end his sprees pretty much mussed up."
"That would perhaps explain where the shirt came
from," murmured the Ad-Visor. "Much obliged
for the suggestion. I'll just step around."


82 AVERAGE JONES
"Silent Charley" he found ready, even eager to
talk. Yes; "Rickey" Hoff had been in his place
right along. Drunk? No; not even drinking much
"lately. Two other gentlemen had met him there
quite often. They sat in the back room and talked.
No, neither of them was Spanish. One was big and
clean-shaven and wore a silk hat. They called him
"Colonel." A swell dresser. The other man drank
gin, and a lot of it. His name was Fred. He was
very tanned. One day there had been a hot discus-
sion over a sheet of paper that lay on the table in
front of the three men in the back room. "Rickey"
had called a messenger boy and sent him out for a
geography. "I told you there wasn't any such
thing there," the saloonkeeper heard him say tri-
umphantly, when the geography arrived. Then
Fred replied: "To h—11 with you and your school-
book! I tell you I've waded across it." The
colonel smoothed things over and it ended in a
magnum of champagne being ordered.
"For which the colonel paid?" asked Average
Jones.
"Why, yes, he did," assented the saloon man.
"He said, 'Well, it's a go, then. Here's luck to us.'
He was a good spender, the colonel."
"And you haven't seen any of them since, I sup-
pose?"
"Nary a one."


OPEN TRAIL 83
On his return to the Hoff mansion the investi-
gator found the head thereof in a state of great
excitement.
"Say, I've found out something," he cried. "Rod-
dy's gone to Yurrup."
"Where did you find that out?" asked Average
Jones with a smile.
"I been going through his papers like you told
me He's been outfitting for a trip Bought lots
of truck the last few days and I found the dupli-
cate sale-checks that come in the packages. There's
stubs for a steamer rug and for a dope for seasick-
ness and for a compass," he concluded triumphantly.
"Compass, eh?" observed Average Jones thought-
fully. "Ship's compass is good enough for most
of us going to Europe. Anything else?"
"Lot of clothes."
"What kind of clothes?"
"Cheap stuff mostly. Khaki riding-pants, negly-
jee shirts and such-like."
"Not much suggestion of Europe there. What
more?"
Doctor Hoff consulted a list. "Colored glasses."
"That looks like desert travel."
"Aneroid barometer."
"Mountain climbing."
"Permanganate of potash outfit."
"Snake country," commented the other.


84 AVERAGE JONES
"Patent water-still."
Average Jones leaned forward. "How big?"
"Don't know. Cost twenty dollars."
"Little one, then. That means about three peo-
ple. Taken with the compass, it means a small-boat
trip on salt water."
"Small boat nothin'!" retorted the other. "His
doctor met me this morning an' told me Roddy had
sent for him and ast him a lot of questions about
eatin' aboard ship and which way to have his berth
made up, and all that."
"A small-boat trip following a sea trip, then.
What else have you found?"
"Nothin' much. Mosquito nettin', pills, surgeon's
plaster and odds and ends of drugs."
"Let me see the drug list."
He ran his eye down the paper. Then he looked
at Doctor Hoff with a half smile.
"You didn't notice anything peculiar about this
list?"
"Don't know as I did."
"Not the—er—nitric acid, for instance?"
"Nope. What of it?"
"Mr. Hoff, your son has been caught by one of
the oldest tricks in the whole bunco list—the lost
Spanish mine swindle. That acid, together with the
rest of the outfit, means a gold-hunt as plain as if
it were spelled out. And the Spanish professor was


OPEN TRAIL 85
sent for, not to give lessons, but to translate the fake
letter. Where does your son bank?"
"Fifth National."
"Telephone there and find out how much he
drew."
Doctor Hoff sat down at the 'phone. "Five hun-
dred dollars," he said presently.
"Is that all?" asked the other, disappointed.
"Yes. Wait. He had six checks certified aggre-
gating ten thousand dollars."
"Then it isn't South America or the West In-
dies. He'd want a letter of credit there. Must be
some part of the United States, or just across the
border. Well, we've done a good day's work, and
I've got a hard evening's thinking before me. We
might be able to head off the colonel's personally
conducted expedition yet, if we could locate it."
The evening's thinking formulated itself into a
telegram to Average Jones' club, the Cosmic. It
was one among the many distinctions of the modest
little club in Gramercy Park, that its membership
pretty well comprised the range of available infor-
mation on any topic. Under the "favored applica-
tions clause," a person whose knowledge of any
particular subject was unique and authoritative,
whether the topic were Esperanto or fistiana, went
to the head of the waiting-list automatically and had
his initiation fee remitted. Hence, Average Jones


86 AVERAGE JONES
was confident of a helpful reply to his message of
inquiry, which summed up his conclusions and sur-
mises thus far:
"Cosmic Club, New York City:
"Refer following to geographical expert: Where
is large, shallow, unmapped body of salt water in
United States, or near border, surrounded by hot,
snake-infested desert and mountainous country, re-
puted to contain gold? Spanish associations indi-
cated. Wire details and name of best guide, if
obtainable. A. Jones."
The reply was disappointing:
"Cyrus C. Allen absent from town. Will forward
your wire.
"Cosmic Club."
Well poised as Average Jones normally was, he
chafed over the ensuing delay of four days, each
of which gave the colonel's expedition just so much
start upon its unknown course. The only relief was
a call from the Spanish instructor who answered
Jones' advertisement. He was the same who had
served young Hoff. As the Ad-Visor surmised, his.
former employment had been merely the translation
of a letter. The letter was in base Spanish, he said.
He didn't remember much of it, but there was some-
thing about a lost gold mine. Yes; there was refer-
ence to a map. No; no geographical names were


OPEN TRAIL' 87
mentioned, but in several places the capital letters
B. C. seemed to indicate a locality. He hadn't noted
the date or the signature. That was all he could
tell.
.7 Doctor Hoff, who had been ramping with impa-
tience over the man's lack of definite memory, now
rushed to the atlas and began to study the maps.
"You needn't trouble," said Average Jones coolly.
"You won't find it there."
"I'll find that B. C. if I have to go over every
map in the geography."
"Then you'll have to get a Spanish edition. For
a guess, B. C. is Baja California, the Mexican penin-
sula of California."
Jones sent a supplementary wire to this effect to
Cyrus C. Allen, of the Cosmic Club, and within a
few hours received a reply from that eminent car-
tographer, who had been located in a remote part
of Connecticut:
"Probably Laguna Salada, not on map. Seventy
miles long; four to eight wide. Between Cocopah
and Sierra Gigantica ranges. Country very wild
and arid. Can be reached by water from Yuma, or
pack train from Calexico. White, who has hunted
there, says Captain Funcke, Calexico, best guide.
"Allen."
Average Jones tossed this over to the father.


88 AVERAGE JONES
"As I figure it," he said, "your son's two friends
had this all mapped out beforehand for him. One
went west direct. He was the imbecile who stopped
in Cincinnati and mailed you the bloody shirt to
throw you off the scent. Meantime the colonel took
Roderick around by a sea route, probably New York
and New Orleans."
"That'd explain the steamer rug and the sea-
sickness," admitted Doctor Hoff; "but I don't know
what he'd want to go that long way for."
"Simple enough, when you reckon with this
colonel person as having brains in his head. He
would foresee a hue and cry as soon as the young
man disappeared. So he cooks up this trip to keep
his prey out of touch with the newspapers for the
few days when the news of the disappearance would
be fresh enough to be spread abroad in the Asso-
ciated Press despatches. From New Orleans they'd
go on west by train."
"What I don't see is how they caught Roddy on
such an old game. He's easy, but I didn't s'pose he
was that easy."
"To do him justice, he isn't—quite. They put it
up on him rather cleverly. In the period of waiting
to hear from the geographical expert I've put in
some fairly hard work, going over your son's ef-
fects. And, in the room over Silent Charley's bar,
I found a newspaper with this in it."


OPEN TRAIL 89
He handed to Doctor Hoff a thin clipping, marked
'Daily Saw, March 29":
LOST—Spanish letter and map. Of no value except
to owner. Return to No. 16, this office, and re-
ceive heartfelt thanks.
"Well," said Doctor Hoff, after reading it over
twice, "that don't tell me nothing."
"No? Yet it's pretty plain. The two crooks
'planted' the letter and map on your son. Probably
slipped them into a pocket of his coat while he was
drunk. Then they inserted their little ad., waited
until he had time to find the letter, and casually
called the advertisement to his attention. The rest
would be easy. But I'll have something to say to
my clerk, who failed to clip that ad."
"You're workin' for me, now," half blustered,
half whined the old quack. "Whatche goin' to do
next?"
"Pack for the night train."
"Where to?"
"Yuma or Calexico. Don't know which till I get
a reply to two telegrams. I'll need five hundred
dollars expense money."
"Say, you don't want much, do ye?" snarled the
quack, his avaricious soul in revolt at the prospect
of immediate outlay. "When I hire a man I expect
him to pay his own expenses and send me the bill."


90 AVERAGE JONES
"Quite so," agreed the other blandly. "But, you
see, you aren't hiring me. I'm doing this on spec.
And I don't propose to invest anything in a dubious
proposition, myself. It isn't too late to call it off,
you know." ,
"No, I do' wanta do that," said the other with
contorted face. "I'll get the five hundred here for
you in an hour."
"And about the five thousand dollars reward? I
think I'd better have a word of writing on that."
"You mean you don't trust me?" snapped the
other. "I'm good for five million dollars to-morrow
in this town."
"I know you are—in writing," agreed the other
equably. "That's why I want your valued signa-
ture. You see, to be quite frank, I haven't the
fullest confidence in gentlemen in your line of busi-
ness."
"I'll have my lawyer draw up a form of contract
and mail it after you to-morrow," promised the
quack with a crafty look.
"No, you wo—" began Average Jones; but he
broke off with a smile. "Very well," he amended.
"If things work out as I figure them, that will do.
And," he added, dropping into his significant drawl
and looking the quack flatly in the eye, "don't you
—er—bank on my—er—not understanding your of-
fer—and—er—you."


OPEN TRAIL 91
Uncomfortably pondering this reply, Doctor Hoff
set about the matter of the expense money. Mean-
time a telegram came which settled the matter of
immediate destination. It apprised Average Jones
that, a fortnight previous, this paragraph had ap-
peared in the paid columns of the Yuma Yucca:
WANTED—Small, flat-bottomed sailboat. Center-
board type preferred. Hasty, care this office.
Average Jones bought a ticket for Yuma.
Disembarking at the Yuma station three days
later, Average Jones blinked in the harsh sunlight at
a small, compactly built, keen-eyed man, roughly
dressed for the trail.
"I'm Captain Funcke," said the stranger. His
speech was gentle, slow, even hesitant; but there was
something competent and reliable in his bearing
which satisfied the shrewd young reader of men's
characters from the outset. "Your wire got me
two days since and I came right up."
"Any trace?"
"Left here two days ago."
"Three of them?"
"Yes. Flat-bottomed, narrow-beamed boat,
sloop-rigged pretty light."
"Know anything of the men?"
"Only the big one. Calls himself Colonel Rich-


92 AVERAGE JONES
ford. Had a fake copper outfit in the mountains
east of Alamo."
"Where do you think they're headed for?"
"Probably the wildest country they can find, if
they want to get rid of young Hoff," said the other,
who had been apprised of the main points of the
situation. "That would likely be the Pinto range, to
the southwest of the Laguna. Richford knows that
country a little. He was in there two years ago."
"They would probably want to get rid of him
without obvious murder," said Average Jones. "You
see, his money is in certified checks which they'd
have to get cashed. If some one should find his
body with a bullet-hole in it, they'd have some ex-
plaining to do."
"Nobody'd be likely to find it. Only about two
parties a year get down there. Still, somebody
might trail him. And I guess old Richford is too
foxy to do any killing when he turns the trick just
as well without it."
"Suppose it's the Pintos, then. How do we get
there?"
"Hard-ash breeze," returned the other succinctly.
"Our rowboat is outfitted and waiting."
"Good work!" said Jones heartily. "How far
is it?"
"Sixty miles to the turn of the Laguna. There's
a four-mile current to help. They've a scant two


OPEN TRAIL 93
days' start, and we'll catch up some, for their boat is
heavier and their sail is no good with the wind in
this direction. If we don't catch up some," he
added grimly, "I wouldn't want to insure our young
friend's life. So it's all aboard, if you're ready."
For the first time since embarking upon the
strange seas of advertising in his quest of the Ad-
venture of Life, Average Jones now met the ex-
perience of grilling physical toil. All that day and
all the night the two men swung at the oars; swung
until every muscle in the young Easterner's back
had turned to live nerve-fiber, and the flesh had
begun to strip from the palms of his hands. Even
so, the hardy captain had done most of the work.
Aided by the current, they turned the shoulder of
the Cocopah range as the dawn shone lurid in the
east, and the captain swung the boat's head to the
southern shore of the lake. Meantime, between
spells at the oars, Average Jones had outlined the
case in full to Funcke. He could have found no
better coadjutor.
By nature and equipment every really expert
hunter and tracker is a detective. The subtleties of
the trial sharpen both physical and mental sensibil-
ity. Captain Funcke was, by instinct, a student of
that continuous logic which constitutes the science
of the chase, whether the prize of pursuit be a moun-
tain sheep's horns or the scholar's meed of praise


94 AVERAGE JONES
for the interpreting of some half-obliterated inscrip-
tion on a pre-Hittite tomb. After long and silent
consideration the captain gave his views.
"It isn't bunco. It's a hold-up. If Rich ford had
wanted to stick young Hoff, he'd never have brought
him here. There isn't 'color' enough within eighty
miles to gild a cigar band. It looks to me like the
scheme is this: They get him off in the mountains,
out of sight of the lake, so he'll have no landmark
to go by. Then they scare him into signing co-part-
nership papers, and make him turn over those certi-
fied checks to them. With the papers to show for
it, they go out by Calexico and cash the checks in
Los Angeles. They could put up the bluff that their
partner was guarding the mine while they bought
machinery and outfitted. That'd be good enough
to cash certified checks by."
"Yes; that's about the way I figure it out. You
spoke of Richford's being able to get rid of young
Hoff effectually, without actual murder."
"All he'd have to do would be to quit the boy
while he was asleep. A tenderfoot would die of
thirst over there in a short time."
"Is there no water?"
"There's a tenaja they're depending on. But I
doubt if they find any water there now. It's been
an extra dry season."
"A tenaja?" queried the Ad-Visor.


OPEN .TRAIL 95
"Rock-basin holding rainwater," explained the
hunter. "There's been no rainfall since August.
If they find the tenaja empty they'll have barely
enough in the canteens they pack to get them to the
next water, the Tenaja Poquita, around behind the
mountains and across the desert into the next
range."
"What's the next water to that?"
"The Stream of Palms. That's a day and a half
on foot."
For the space of a hundred oar-strokes Average
Jones ruminated.
"Suppose—er—they didn't—er—find any water
in the Tenaja Poquita, either?" he drawled.
"Then they would be up against it."
"And there's no other water in the Pintos?"
"Yes, there is," said the captain. "There's a ten-
aja that's so high up and so hidden that it's only
known to one other man besides me, and he's an
Indian. It's less than an hour from the tenaja that
Rich ford will take his party to. And we're sure
of finding water there. It never dries up this early."
"Get me to young Hoff, then, Captain. You're
in command from the moment we land."
It was broad day when the keel pushed softly into
the muddy bottom of a long, shallow arm of the
lake. Captain Funcke rose, stretched the kinks out
of his back, and jumped ashore.


96 AVERAGE JONES
"You say I'm in command?" he inquired.
"Absolute."
"Then you roll up under that mesquite and fall
asleep. I'm going to cast about for their trail."
To the worn-out oarsman, it seemed only a few
moments later that an insistent grip on his shoulder
aroused him. But the overhead sun, whose direct
rays were fairly boiling the sweat out of him,
harshly corrected this impression.
"I've found their boat," said Captain Funcke.
"The trail heads for the Pintos. They're traveling
heavy. I don't believe they're twenty-four hours
ahead of us."
Average Jones stumbled to his feet. "I'm ready,"
he said.
"It's a case of travel light." The hunter handed
over a small bag of food and a large canteen full of
water. He himself packed a much larger load, in-
cluding two canteens and a powerful field-glass.
Taking a shotgun from the boat, he shouldered it,
and set out at a long, easy stride.
To Average Jones the memory of that day has
never been wholly clear. Sodden with weariness,
dazzled and muddled by the savage sun-glare, he
followed, with eyes fixed, the rhythmically, mon-
otonously moving feet of his leader, through an
interminable desert of soft, clogging sand; a desert
which dropped away into parched arroyos, and rose


OPEN TRAIL 97
to scorched mesas whereon fierce cacti thrust at him
with thorns and spikes; a desert dead and mummi-
fied in the dreadful heat; a lifeless Inferno wherein
moved neither beast, bird nor insect. He remem-
bers, dimly, lying as he fell, when the indefatigable
captain called a halt, and being wakened in the chill
breeze of evening, to see a wall of mountains block-
ing the advance. Food brought him to his normal
self again, and in the crisp air of night he set his
face to the task of climbing. Severe as this was
upon his unaccustomed muscles, the firm rocks were
still a welcome relief after the racking looseness of
sand that interminably sank away from foothold.
At midnight the wearied pursuers dropped down
from a high plateau to a narrow arroyo. Here
again was sand. Fortunately, this time, for in it
footprints stood out clear, illuminated by the whitt
moonlight. They led direct to a side barranca.
There the pursuers found the camp. It was de-
serted, i
Like a hound on the trail, Captain Funcke cast
about him.
"Here's where they came in. No—yes—this is
it. Confound the cross-tracks! . . . Here one of
them cuts across the ridge to the tcnaja for water.
. . . Waitl . . . What's this? Coyote trail?
Yes, but . . . Trail brushed over, by thunder!
They didn't do it carefully enough . . . Straight


oS AVERAGE JONES
for the rocky mesa. . . . That's it! They made
their sneak while Hoff was asleep, probably cover-
ing trail behind them, and struck out for the inside
desert route to the Tenaja Poquita." He took a
quick look about the camp and picked up an empty
canteen. "Of course, they wouldn't leave him any
water."
"Then he's gone to hunt it," suggested Average
Jones. "Which way?"
"You can't tell which way a tenderfoot will go,"
said the hunter philosophically. "If he had any
savvy at all he'd follow the old beaten track around
by the arroyo to the water-hole. We'll try it."
On the way, Average Jones noticed his compan-
ion stop frequently to examine the sand for some-
thing which he evidently didn't find.
"These are fresh footsteps we're following, aren't
they?" he asked.
"Yes. It isn't that. He went this way all right.
But the tenaja's gone dry."
; "How can you tell that?"
"No fresh sign of animals going this way. Must
have been dry for weeks. Our mining friends have
taken what little water there was and left young
Hoff to die of thirst," said the other grimly. "Well,
that explains the empty canteen all right."
He turned and renewed his quick progress, leap-
ing from boulder to boulder, between narrowing


OPEN TRAIL 99
walls of gray-white rock. Just as Average Jones
was spent and almost ready to collapse the leader
checked.
"Hark!" he whispered.
Above the beating of the blood in his ears, Jones
heard an irregular, insistent scuffing sound. He
crouched in silence while the captain crept up to a
ledge and cautiously peered over, then went forward
in response to the other's urgent beckoning. They
looked down into a rock-basin of wild and curious
beauty. To this day Average Jones remembers the
luminous grace and splendor of a Matilija poppy,
which, rooted between two boulders, swayed gently
in the white moonlight above a figure of dread. The
figure, naked from the waist up, huddled upon the
hard-baked mud, digging madly at the earth. A
sharp exclamation broke from Average Jones. The
digger half-rose, turned, collapsed to his knees, and
pointed with bleeding fingers to his open mouth, in
which the tongue showed black and swollen.
They went down to him.
An hour later, "Rickey" Hoff was sleeping the
sleep of utter exhaustion in camp. Average Jones
felt amply qualified to join him. But it was not in
the Ad-Visor's character to quit an enterprise be-
fore it was wholly completed. So long as the two
bandits were on their way to cash the young spend-
thrift's checks—Jones had heard from the victim a


1oo AVERAGE JONES
brief account of the extortion—success was not
fully won.
"We've got to get that money back," he said to
Captain Funcke with conviction.
The hunter made no reply in words. He merely
leaned his shotgun against his thigh, reached around
beneath his coat and produced a forty-five caliber
revolver. This he held out toward Jones.
"Good thing to have," conceded the other. "But
—well, no; not in this case. They got the booty
with a show of legality, since HofT signed the co-
partnership agreement and turned over the checks.
It was under duress and threats, it's true, but who's
to prove that, they being two to one, and this being
Mexico? No; they're within the law, and I've a
notion that we can get the swag back by straight
sale and barter. Provided, always, we can catch
them in time."
"They'll want to make pretty good time to the
Tenaja Poquita," pointed out the captain. "They're
shy on water."
"On wind, too. They've traveled hard, and they
can't be in the pink of condition. According to
Hoff, they deserted him while he was taking a nap,
about four o'clock in the afternoon. It's a fair bet
they'd camp for the night, as you say it's an eight-
hour hike to the tenaja."
"Eight, the way they'd go."


OPEN TRAIL 101
"Then — er — there's a— er — shorter way?"
drawled Average Jones, removing some sand from
a wrinkle in his scarified and soiled trousers as
carefully as if that were the one immediate and im-
portant consideration in life.
"Yes. Across the Padre Cliffs. It cuts off about
four hours, and it takes us almost to the secret
tenaja I spoke of. We can fill up there. But it's
not what you'd call safe, even in daylight."
"But to a hunter, wouldn't it be well worth the
risk for a record pair of horns—even if they were
only tin horns?" queried Average Jones sugges-
tively.
Captain Funcke relaxed into a grin. He nodded.
"What'll we do with him?" he asked, jerking his
head toward the sleeper.
"Leave him water, food and a note. Now,
about this Tenaja Poquita we're headed for. How
much water do you think there is in it?"
"If there's a hundred gallons it's doing well, this
dry season."
Average Jones got painfully to his feet. Look-
ing carefully over the scattered camp outfit, he se-
lected from it a collapsible pail. Captain Funcke
glanced at it with curiosity, but characteristically
forebore to ask any questions. He himself shoul-
dered the largest canteen.
"This'U be enough for both until we reach the


102 AVERAGE JONES
supply," he said. "Don't need so much water at
night."
But the tenderfoot hung upon his own shoulder,
not only the smallest of their three canteens, but
also the empty one which they had found in the
camp. Their own third tin, almost full, they left
beside Hoff, with a note.
"I've a notion," said Jones, "that I'll need all
these receptacles for water in my own peculiar busi-
ness."
"All right," assented the other patiently. He
took one of them and the pail from Jones and skil-
fully disposed them on his own back. "Ready?
Hike, then."
Two hours of the roughest kind of climbing
brought them to a landslide. These sudden shift-
ings of the slopes are a frequent feature of travel in
the Lower California mountains, often obliterating
trails and costing the wayfarer painful and peril-
ous search for a new path. On the Padre Cliffs,
however, had occurred that rare phenomenon, a
benevolent avalanche, piling up a safe and feasible
embankment around the angle of an impracticable
precipice, and thus saving an hour of the most tick-
lish going of the journey. Thanks to this dispensa-
tion, the two men reached the Tenaja Poquita before
dawn. Scouting ahead, the captain reported no fresh
trail except coyotes and mule deer, and not more


OPEN TRAIL 103
than seventy-five gallons of water in the basin. Of
this they both drank deeply. Then after they had
filled all the canteens, Average Jones unfolded his
scheme to the captain.
"If any one caught us at it," commented that ex-
perienced hunter, "we'd be shot without warning.
However, the water would be evaporated in a few
days anyhow, and I'll post notices at the next water-
camps. I'm with you."
Taking turn and turn about with the pail, they
bailed out the rock-basin, scattering the water upon
the greedy sand. What little moisture remained in
the sticky mud at the bottom they blotted up with
more sand. They then rolled in boulders. Aver-
age Jones looked down into the hollow with satis-
faction, and moved his full canteens into a grotto.
"This company," he said, "is now open for busi-
ness."
At eight o'clock there was a clatter of boots upon
the rocks and two men came staggering up the de-
file. Colonel Rich ford and his partner did not look
to be in good repair. The colonel's face was drawn
and sun-blotched. His companion, the "Fred" of
Silent Charley's bar, was bloated and shaken with
liquor. Both panted with the hard, dry, open-lipped
breath of the first stage of thirst-exhaustion. The
colonel, who was in the lead, checked and started
upon discovering astride of a rock a pleasant-


104 AVERAGE JONES
visaged young man of a familiar American type,
whose appearance was in nowise remarkable except
as to locality. With a grunt that might have been
greeting, but was more probably surprise, the new-
comer passed the seated man. Captain Funcke Ire
did not see at all. That astute hunter had dropped
behind a boulder.
At the brink of the tenaja the colonel stopped
dead. Then with an outburst of flaming language,
he leaped in, burrowing among the rocks.
"Dry!" he yelled, lifting a furious and appalled
face to his companion.
Fred stood staring from Average Jones to his
three canteens. There was a murderous look on his
sinister face.
"Got water?" he growled.
"Yes," replied the young man.
"Here, Colonel," said Fred. "Here's drink for
us."
"For sale," added Average Jones calmly.
"People don't buy water in this country."
"You're not people," returned Average Jones
cheerfully. "You're a corporation; a soulless cor-
poration. The North Pinto Gold Mining Company."
"What's that!" cried the colonel thickly.
His hand flew back to his belt. Then it dropped,
limp at his side, for he was gazing into the two
barrels of a shotgun, which, materializing over a


OPEN TRAIL 105
rock, were pointing accurately and disconcertingly
at the pit of his stomach. From behind the gun
Captain Funcke's quiet voice remarked:
"I wouldn't, Colonel. As for you," he added,
turning to the other wayfarer, who carried a rifle,
"you want to remember that a shotgun has two bar-
rels, usually both loaded."
Stepping forward, Average Jones "lifted" the
financier's weapon. Then he deprived Fred of his
rifle amid a surprisingly brilliant outburst of verbal
pyrotechnics.
"Now we can talk business comfortably," he ob-
served.
"I can't talk at all pretty quick if I don't git a
moistener," said Fred piteously.
Pouring out a scant cupful of water into his hat,
Average Jones handed it over. "Drink slowly," he
advised. "You've got about a hundred dollars' worth
there at present quotations."
Colonel Richford's head went up with a jerk.
"Hundred dollars' worth!" he croaked, his eyes
fiery with suspicion. "Are you going to hold up two
men dying of thirst?"
"There's been only one man in danger of that
death around here. His name is Hoff."
The redoubtable colonel gasped, and leaned back
against a rock.
"You'll be relieved to learn that he's safe. Now,


io6 AVERAGE JONES
to answer your question: No, I don't propose to
hold up two men for anything. I propose to deal
with the president and treasurer of the North Pinto
Gold Mining Company. As a practical mining man
you will appreciate the absolute necessity of water
in your operations. The nearest available supply is
some ten hours distant. Before you could reach it
I fear that—er—your company would—er—have
gone out of existence. Therefore I am fortunate in
being able to offer you a small supply which I will
put on the market at the low rate of ten thousand
dollars. I may add that—er—certified checks will
—er—be accepted."
For two hours the colonel, with the occasional
objurgatory assistance of his partner, talked, begged,
argued, threatened, and even wept. By the end of
that time his tongue was making sounds like a muf-
fled castanet, and his resolution was scorched out of
him.
"You've got us," he croaked. "Here's your
checks. Give me the water."
"In proper and legal form, please," said Average
Jones.
He produced a contract and a fountain-pen.
The contract was duly signed and witnessed. It
provided for the transfer of the water, in considera-
tion of one revolver and ten thousand dollars in
checks. These checks were endorsed over to A. V.


OPEN TRAIL 107
R. E. Jones, whereupon he turned over the pail of
water and the largest canteen to the parched miners.
Then, sorting out the checks, he pocketed two aggre-
gating five thousand dollars, tore up three, and
holding the other in his hand, turned to Captain
Funcke.
"Will five hundred dollars pay you for keeping
young Hoff down here a couple of months and mak-
ing the beginning of a man of him?" he asked.
"Yes, and more," replied the captain.
"It's a go," said Average Jones. "I'd like to make
the job complete."
Then, courteously bidding the North Pinto Gold
Mining Company farewell, the two water-dealers
clambered up the rocks and disappeared beyond the
abrupt sky-line.
Once again Doctor Conrad Hoff sat in the private
office of Average Jones, Ad-Visor. The young man
was thinner, browner and harder of fiber than the
Jones of two weeks previous. Doctor Hoff looked
him over with shrewd eyes.
"Say, your trip ain't done you no harm, has it?"
he exclaimed with a boisterous and false good na-
ture. "You look like a fightin'-cock. Hope the boy
comes out as good. You say he's all right?"
"You've got his letter, in which he says so him-
self. That's enough proof, isn't it?"


OPEN TRAIL 109
dealing when I contract to do up a mining swindler
for the benefit of the only meaner creature on God's
earth—a patent medicine poisoner. So I took pre-
cautions."
"Say, be careful of what you say, young man,"
blustered the quack.
"I am—quite particular. And, before you leave,
wouldn't you like to hear about the five thousand
dollars I got for my little job?"
Doctor Hoff blinked rapidly.
"What didje say?" he finally inquired.
"Five—er—thousand—er—dollars."
"You got it?"
"In the bank."
"Where-dje get it?"
"From you, through your son's check, duly certi-
fied."
Doctor Hoff blinked more rapidly and moistened
his lips with an effortful tongue.
"H-h-how-dje work it?" he asked in a die-away
voice.
"By a forced sale of water rights to the North
Pinto Gold Mining Company, dissolved, in which
Mr. Roderick Hoff was vice-president and silent
partner," replied Average Jones with an amiable
smile, as he opened the door significantly.


CHAPTER IV
THE MERCY SIGN ONE
"TT TANT a job, Average?"
VV Bertram, his elegance undimmed by the
first really trying weather of the early summer,
drifted to the coolest spot in the Ad-Visor's sanctum
and spread his languid length along a wicker settee.
"Give a man breathing space, can't you?" re-
turned Average Jones. "This is hotter than Baja
California."
"Why, I assumed that your quest of the quack's
scion would have trained you down fit for any-
thing."
"Haven't even caught up with the clippings that
Simpson floods me with, since I came back," con-
fessed the other. "What have you got up your
faultlessly creased sleeve? It's got to be something
different to rouse me from a well-earned lethargy."
"Because a man buncoes a loving father out of
five thousand dollars"—Average Jones snorted
no


112 AVERAGE JONES
ribs. "Double-up Lucy; the sun is in the sky!" he
proclaimed with unwonted energy. "Listen. I cut
this out of yesterday's Evening Register. With my
own fair hands I did it, to rouse you from your
shameless sloth. With your kind attention, ladies
and gentlemen—" He read:
"Wanted—A young man, unattached, competent
to act as assistant in outdoor scientific work.
Manual skill as desirable as experience. Emolument
for one month's work generous. Man without fam-
ily insisted upon. Apply after 8:30 p. M. in proper
person. Smith, 74 Bellair Street."
Slowly whirling in his chair. Average Jones held
out a hand, received the clipping, read it through
with attention, laid it on the desk, and yawned.
"Is that all?" said the indignant Bertram. "Do
you notice that 'unattached' in the opening sentence?
And the specification that the applicant must be
without family? Doesn't that inspire any notion
above a yawn in your palsied processes of mind?"
"It does; several notions. I yawned," explained
Average Jones with dignity, "because I perceive
with pain that I shall have to go to work. What do
you make of the thing, yourself?"
"Well, this man Smith—"
"What man Smith?"
"Smith, of 74 Bellair Street, who signs the ad."


THE MERCY SIGN 113
Average Jones laughed. "There isn't any Smith,"
he said.
"What do you know about it?" demanded Ber-
tram, sitting up.
"Only what the advertisement tells me. It was
written by a foreigner; that's too obvious for argu-
ment. 'Emolument generous.' 'Apply in proper
person.' Did a Smith ever write that? No. A
Borgrevsky might have, or a Greiffenhauser, or even
a Mavronovoupoulos. But never Smith."
"Well, it's nothing to me what his name is. Only
I thought you might be the aspiring young scientist
he was yearning for."
"Wouldn't wonder if I were, thank you. Let's
see. Bellair Street? Where's the directory? Thanks.
Yes, it is Greenwich Village. Well, I think I'll just
stroll down that way and have a look after dinner."
Thus it was that Mr. Adrian Van Reypen Egerton
Jones found himself on a hot May evening pursuing
the Adventure of Life into the vestibule of a rather
dingy old house which had once been the abode of
solemn prosperity if not actual aristocracy in the
olden days of New York City. Almost immedi-
ately the telegraphic click of the lock apprised him
that he might enter, and as he stepped into the hall-
way the door of the right-hand ground-floor apart-
ment opened to him.
"You will please come in," said a voice.


THE MERCY SIGN 115
"You have come in answer to my advertisement?"
"Yes, sir."
"You are, then, of scientific pursuit?"
"Of scientific ambition, at least. I hope to meet
your requirements."
"Your name, if you please."
"Jones; A. Jones, of New York City."
"You live with your family?"
"I have no family or near relatives."
"That is well. I will not conceal from you that
there are risks. But the pay is high. Can you en-
dure exposure? Laboring in all weathers? Sub-
sisting on rough fare and sleeping as you may?"
"I have camped in the northern forests."
"Yes," mused the voice. "You look hardy."
Average Jones arose. "You—er—are spying
upon me, then," he drawled quietly. "I might have
—er—suspected a peep-hole."
He advanced slowly toward the door whence the
voice came. A chair blocked his way. Without
lowering his gaze he shoved at the obstacle with his
foot.
"Have a care!" warned the voice.
The chair toppled and overturned. From it fell,
with a light shock, the strange valise, which, striking
the floor, flew open, disclosing a small cardboard
cabinet. Across the front of the cabinet was a
strip of white paper labeled in handwriting, each


u6 AVERAGE JONES
letter being individual, with what looked to the
young man like the word "MERCY." He stooped
to replace the bag.
"Do not touch it," ordered the voice peremptorily.
Average Jones straightened up to face the door
again.
"I will apologize for my clumsiness," he said
slowly, "when you explain why you have tried to
trick me."
There was a pause. Then—
"Presently," said the voice. "Meantime, after
what you have accidentally seen, you will perhaps
appreciate that the employment is not without its
peril."
Average Jones stared from the door to the floored
cabinet and back again in stupefaction.
"Perhaps I'm stupid," he said, "but a misshapen
valise containing a cabinet with a girl's name on it
doesn't seem calculated to scare an able-bodied man
to death. It isn't full of dynamite, is it?"
"What is your branch of scientific work?" coun-
ter-questioned the other.
"Botany," replied the young man, at random.
"No other? Physics? Entomology? Astron-
omy? Chemistry? Biology?"
The applicant shook his head in repeated nega-
tion. "None that I've specialized on."
"Ah! I fear you will not suit my purpose."


THE MERCY SIGN 119
conduct, motives and personality of the organiza-
tion's governing committees.
On the day following Bertram's telephone, Pro-
fessor Gehren entered Astor Court Temple, took the
elevator to the ninth floor, and, following directions,
found himself scanning a ground-glass window
flaunting the capitalized and gilded legend,
A. JONES, AD-VISOR.
"Ad-Visor," commented the professor, rancor-
ously. "A vicious verbal monstrosity!" He read
on:
ADVICE UPON ADVERTISING IN ALL
FORMS
Consultation Free. Step In
"Consultation free!" repeated the educator with
virulence. "A trap! A manifest pitfall! I don't
know why Mr. Bertram should have sent me hither.
The enterprise is patently quack," he asseverated in
a rising voice.
Upon the word a young man opened the door
and, emerging, received the accusation full in the
face. The young man smiled.
"Quack, I said," repeated the exasperated mentor,
"and I repeat it. Quack!"
"If you're suffering from the delusion that you're


120 AVERAGE JONES
i
a duck," observed the young man mildly, "you'll
find a taxidermist on the top floor."
The caller turned purple. "If you are Mr. Jones,
of the Cosmic Club—"
"I am."
"—there are certain things which Mr. Bertram
must explain."
"Yes; Bertram said that you were coming, but
I'd almost given you up. Come in."
"Into a—a—den where free advice is offered?
Of all the patent and infernal rascalities, sir, the
offer of free advice—"
"There, there," soothed the younger man. "I
know all about the free swindles. This isn't one of
them. It's just a fad of mine."
He led the perturbed scholar inside and got him
settled in a chair. "Now, go ahead. Show me the
advertisement and tell me how much you lost."
"I've lost my assistant. There is no advertise-
ment about it. What I came for is advice. But
upon seeing your tricky door-plate—"
"Oh, that's merely to encourage the timorous.
Who is this assistant?"
"Harvey Craig, a youth, hardly more than a boy,
for whom I feel a certain responsibility, as his de-
ceased parents left him in my care."
"Yes," said Jones as the professor paused.
"He has disappeared."


THE MERCY SIGN 121
"When?"
"Permanently, since ten days ago."
"Permanently?"
"Up to that time he had absented himself without
reporting to me for only three or four days at a
time."
"He lived with you?"
"No. He had been aiding me in certain investi-
gations at my laboratory."
"In what line?"
"Metallurgy."
"When did he stop?"
"About four weeks ago."
"Did he give any reason?"
"He requested indefinite leave. Work had been
offered him, he hinted, at a very high rate of re-
muneration."
"You don't know by whom?"
"No, I know nothing whatever about it."
"Have you any definite suspicions as to his ab-
sence?"
"I gravely fear that the boy has made away with
himself."
"Why so?"
"After his first absence I called to see him at his
room. He had obviously undergone a violent par-
oxysm of grief or shame."
"He told you this?"


122 AVERAGE JONES
"No. But his eyes, and, indeed, his whole face,
were abnormally swollen, as with weeping."
"Ah, yes." Average Jones' voice had suddenly
taken on a bored indifference. "Were—er—his
hands, also?"
"His hands? Why should they?"
"Of course, why, indeed? You noted them?"
"I did not, sir."
"Did he seem depressed or morose?"
"I can not say that he did."
"Professor Gehren, what newspaper do yon
take?"
The scholar stared. "The Citizen in the morning,
The Register in the evening."
"Are either of them delivered to your labora-
tory?"
"Yes; the Register"
"Do you keep it on file?"
"No."
"Ah! That's a pity. Then you wouldn't know if
one were missing?"
The professor reflected. "Yes, there was a copy
containing a letter upon Von Studeborg's recent ex-
periments—"
"Can you recall the date?"
"After the middle of June, I think."
Average Jones sent for a file and handed it to
Professor Gehren.


THE MERCY SIGN 123
"Is this it?" he asked, indicating the copy of
June 18.
"That is the letter!" said that gentleman.
Average Jones turned the paper and found, upon
an inside page, the strange advertisement from 74
Bellair Street.
"One more question, Professor," said he. "When
did you last see Mr. Craig?"
"Nine or ten days ago. I think it was July 2."
"How did he impress you?"
"As being somewhat preoccupied. Otherwise
normal."
"Was his face swollen then?"
"No."
"Where did you see him?"
"The first time at my laboratory, about eleven
o'clock."
"You saw him again that day, then?"
"Yes. We met by accident at a little before two
p. M. on Twenty-third Street. I was surprised, be-
cause he had told me he had to catch a noon train
and return to his work."
"Then he hadn't done so?"
"Yes. He explained that he had, but that he had
been sent back to buy some supplies."
"You believe he was telling the truth?"
"In an extensive experience with young men I
have never known a more truthful one than he."


124 AVERAGE JONES
"Between the first day of his coming back to New
York and the last, had you seen him?"
"I had talked with him over the telephone. He
called up two or three times to say that he was well
and working hard and that he hoped to be back in
a few weeks."
"Where did he call up from?"
"As he did not volunteer the information, I am
unable to say."
"Unfortunate again. Well, I think you may drop
the notion of suicide. If anything of importance
occurs, please notify me at once. Otherwise, I'll
send you word when I have made progress."
Having dismissed the anxious pundit, Average
Jones, so immersed in thought as to be oblivious to
outer things, made his way to the Cosmic Club in
a series of caroms from indignant pedestrian to in-
dignant pedestrian. There, as he had foreseen, he
found Robert Bertram.
"Can I detach you from your usual bridge game
this evening?" he demanded of that languid gentle-
man.
"Very possibly. What's the inducement?"
"Chapter Second of the Bellair Street advertise-
ment. I've told you the first chapter. You've been
the god-outside-the-machine so far. Now, come
on in."
Together they went to the Greenwich Village


THE MERCY SIGN 125
house. The name "Smith" had disappeared from
the vestibule.
"As I expected," said Jones. "Our hope be in
the landlord!"
The landlord turned out to be a German landlady,
who knew little concerning her late ground-floor
tenant and evinced no interest in the subject. The
"perfessor,' as she termed "Smith," had taken the
flat by the month, was prompt in payment, quiet in
habit, given to long and frequent absences; had been
there hardly at all in the last few weeks. Where
had he moved to? Himmel only knew! He had
left no address. Where did his furniture go? No-
where; he'd left it behind. Was any one in the
house acquainted with him? Mrs. Marron in the
other ground-floor flat had tried to be. Not much
luck, she thought.
Mrs. Marron was voluble, ignorant, and a willing
source of information.
"The perfessor? Sure! I knew'm. 'Twas me
give'm the name. He was a Mejum. Naw! Not
for money. Too swell for that. But a real-thing
Mejum. A big one; one of the kind it comes to,
nacheral. Spirit-rappin's! Somethin' fierce! My
kitchen window is on the air-shaft. So's his.
Many's the time in the still evenin's I've heard the
rap-rap-rappin' on his window an' on the wall, but
mostly on the window. Blip! out of the dark. It'd


i26 AVERAGE JONES
make you just hop! And him sittin' quiet and peace-
ful in the front room all the time. Yep; my little
girl seen him there while I was hearin' the raps."
*Did you ask him about them?" inquired Jones.
"Sure! He wouldn't have it at first. Then he
kinder smiled and half owned up. And once I seen
him with his materializin' wand, sittin' in the room
almost dark."
"His what?"
"Materializin' wand. Spirit-rod, you know. As
tall as himself and all shiny and slick. It was slim
and sort o' knobby like this wood—what's the name
of it, now?—they make fish poles out of. Only the
real big-bugs in spiritualism use 'em. They're dan-
gerous. You wouldn't catch me touchin' it or goin'
in there even now. I says to Mrs. Kraus, I says—"
And so the stream of high-pitched, eager talk
flowed until the two men escaped from it into the
vacant apartment. This was much as Average
Jones had seen on his former visit. Only the strange
valise was missing. Going to the kitchen, which
opened through intermediate doors on a straight line
with the front room, Average Jones inspected the
window. The glass was thickly marked with faint,
bluish blurs, being, indeed, almost opaque from
them in the middle of the upper pane. There was
nothing indicative below the window, unless it were


THE MERCY SIGN 127
a considerable amount of crumbled putty, which he
fingered with puzzled curiosity.
In the f rorit room a mass of papers had been half
burned. Some of them were local journals, mostly
the Evening Register. A few were publications in
the Arabic text.
"Oriental newspapers," remarked Bertram.
Average Jones picked them up and began to fold
them. From between two sheets fluttered a very
small bit of paper, narrow and half curled, as if from
the drying of mucilage. He lifted and read it.
"Here we are again, Bert," he remarked in his
most casual tone. "The quality of this Mercy is
strained, all right."
The two men bent over the slip, studying it. The
word was, as Average Jones had said, in a strained,
effortful handwriting, and each letter stood distinct.
These were the characters:
vnssfLcg—
"Is it mathematical, do you think, possibly?"
asked Average Jones.
"All alone by itself like that? Rather not! More
like a label, if you ask me."
"The little sister of the label on the cabinet, then,"
"Cherchez la fcmme," observed Bertram. "It


128 AVERAGE JONES
sounds like perfect foolishness to me; a swollen-
faced outlander who rules familiar spirits with a
wand, and, between investigations in the realms of
science, writes a girl's name all over the place like
a lovesick school-boy! Is Mercy his spirit-control,
do you suppose?"
"Oh, let's get out of here," said Average Jones.
"I'm getting dizzy with it all. The next step," he
observed, as they walked slowly up the street, "is
by train. Want to take a short trip to-morrow,
Bert? Or, perhaps, several short trips?"
"Whither away, fair youth?"
"To the place where the fake 'Smith' and the lost
Craig have been doing their little stunts."
"I thought you said Professor Gehren couldn't
tell you where Craig had gone."
"No more he could. So I've got to find out for
myself. Here's the way I figure it out: The two
men have been engaged in some out-of-door work
that is extra hazardous. So much we know. Harvey
Craig has, I'm afraid, succumbed to it. Otherwise
he'd have sent some word to Professor Gehren. He
may be dead or he may only be disabled by the dan-
gerous character of the work, whatever it was. In
any case our mysterious foreign friend has prob-
ably skipped out hastily. Now, I propose to find
the railroad station they passed through, coming
and going, and interview the ticket agent."


THE MERCY SIGN 129
"You've got a fine large contract on your hands
to find it."
"Not so large, either. All we have to do is to
look for a place that is very isolated and yet quite
near New York."
"How do you know it is quite near New York?"
"Because Harvey Craig went there and back be-
tween noon and two o'clock, Professor Gehren says.
Now, we've got to find such a place which is near a
stretch of deserted, swampy ground, very badly in-
fested with mosquitoes. I'd thought of the Hacken-
sack Meadows, just across the river in Jersey."
"That is all very well," said Bertram; "but why
mosquitoes?"
"Why, the poisoned and swollen face and hands
both of them suffered from," explained Average
Jones. "What else could it be?"
"I'd thought of poison-ivy or some kind of plant
they'd been grubbing at."
"So had I. But I happened to think that anything
of that sort, if it had poisoned them once, would
keep on poisoning them, while mosquitoes they could
protect themselves against, if they didn't become im-
mune, as they most likely would. As there must
have been a lot of 'skeeters' to do the kind of job
that 'Smith's' face showed, I naturally figured on
a swamp."
"Average," said Bertram solemnly, "there are


ISO AVERAGE JONES
times when I conceive a sort of respect for your
commonplace and plodding intellect. Now, let me
have my little inning. I used to commute on the
Jersey and Delaware Short Line. There's a station
on that line, Pearlington by name, that's a combina-
tion of Mosquitoville, Lonesomehurst and Nutting
Doon. It's in the mathematical center of the ghast-
liest marsh anywhere between Here and Somewhere-
else. I think that's our little summer resort, and
I'm yours for the nine a. m. train to-morrow."
Dismounting from that rather casual accommoda-
tion on the following day, the two friends found
Pearlington to consist of a windowed packing-box
inhabited by a hermit in a brass-buttoned blue. This
lonely official readily identified the subjects of Av-
erage Jones' inquiry.
"I guess I know your friends, all right. The
dago was tall and thin and had white hair; almost
snow-white. No, he wasn't old, neither. He talked
very soft and slow. Used to stay off in the reeds
three and four days at a time. No, ain't seen him
for near a week; him nor his boat nor the young
fellow that was with him. Sort of bugologists, or
something, wasn't they?"
"Have you any idea where we could find their
camp?"
The railroad man laughed.
"Fine chance you got of finding anything in that


THE MERCY SIGN 131
swamp. There's ten square miles of it, every square
just like every other square, and a hundred little
islands, and a thousand creeks and rivers winding
through."
"You're right," agreed Average Jones. "It would
take a month to search it. You spoke of a boat."
"It's my notion they must have had a houseboat.
They could a-rowed it up on the tide from the
Kills—a little one. I never saw no tent with 'em.
And they had to have something over their heads.
The boat I seen 'em have was a rowboat. I s'pose
they used it to go back and forth in."
"Thanks," said Average Jones. "That's a good
idea about the houseboat."
On the following day this advertisement appeared
in the newspapers of several shore towns along the
New Jersey and Staten Island coast.
ADRIFT—A small houseboat lost several days ago
from the Hackensack Meadows. Fifty dollars re-
ward paid for information leading to recovery. Jones,
Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple, New York.
Two days later came a reply, locating the lost
craft at Bayenne. Average Jones went thither
and identified it. Within its single room was utter-
most confusion, testifying to the simplest kind of
housekeeping sharply terminated. Attempt had
been made to burn the boat before it was given to


CHAPTER V
THE MERCY SIGN—TWO
SOME days after the recovery of the houseboat,
Average Jones sat at breakfast, according to
his custom, in the cafe of the Hotel Palatia. Sev-
eral matters were troubling his normally serene
mind. First of these was the loss of the trail which
should have led to Harvey Craig. Second, as a
minor issue, the Oriental papers found in the de-
serted Bellair Street apartment had been proved, by
translation, to consist mainly of revolutionary sound
and fury, signifying, to the person most concerned,
nothing. As for the issue of the Washington daily,
culled from the houseboat, there was, amidst the
usual melange of social, diplomatic, political and
city news, no marked passage to show any reason
for its having been in the possession of "Smith."
Average Jones had studied and restudied the col-
umns, both reading matter and advertising, until he
knew them almost by heart. During the period o!
133


i34 AVERAGE JONES
waiting for his order to be brought he was brood-
ing over the problem, when he felt a hand-pressure
on his shoulder and turned to confront Mr. Thomas
Colvin McIntyre, solemn of countenance and
groomed with a supernal modesty of elegance, as
befitted a rising young diplomat, already Fifth As-
sistant Secretary of State of the United States of
America.
"Hello, Tommy," said the breakfaster. "What'll
you have to drink? An entente cordiale?"
"Don't joke," said the other. "I'm in a pale pink-
funk. I'm afraid to look into the morning papers."
"Hello! What have you been up to that's scan-
dalous?"
"It isn't me," replied the diplomat ungrammati-
cally. "It's Telfik Bey."
"Telfik Bey? Wait a minute. Let me think."
The name had struck a response from some thought-
wire within Average Jones' perturbed brajn. Pres-
ently it came to him as vizualized print in small
head-lines, reproduced to the mind's eye from the
Washington newspaper which he had so exhaust-
ively studied.
THIS TURK A QUICK JUMPER
Telfik Bey, Guest of Turkish Embassy, Barely
Escapes a Speeding Motor-Car


THE MERCY SIGN 135
No arrest, it appeared, had been made. The
"story," indeed, was brief, and of no intrinsic im-
portance other than as a social note. But to Aver-
age Jones it begain to glow luminously.
"Who is Telfik Bey?" he inquired.
"He isn't . Up to yesterday he was a guest of
this hotel."
"Indeed! Skipped without paying his bill?"
"Yes—ah. Skipped—that is, left—suddenly—
without paying his bill, if you choose to put it that
way."
The tone was significant. Average Jones' good-
natured face became grave.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Tommy. Was he a
friend of yours?"
"No. He was, in a sense, a ward of the Depart-
ment, over here on invitation. This is what has
almost driven me crazy."
Fumbling nervously in the pocket of his crease-
less white waistcoat he brought forth a death notice.
"From the Dial," he said, handing it to Average
Jones.
The clipping looked conventional enough.
DIED—July ai. suddenly at the Hotel Palatia:
Telfik Bey of Stamboul. Turkey. Funeral serv-
ice! from the Turkish Embassy, Washington, on Tues-
day. Ana Alhari.
"If the newspapers ever discover—" The young


136 AVERAGE JONES
diplomat stopped short before the enormity of the
hypothesis.
"It looks straight enough to me as a death notice,
except for the tail. What does 'Ana Alhari' mean?
Sort of a requiescat?"
"Yes; like a mice!" said young Mr. McIntyre
bitterly. "It means 'Hurrah!' That's the sort of
requiescat it is!"
"Ah! Then they got him the second time."
"What do you mean by 'second time?'"
"The Washington incident, of course, was the
first; the attempted murd— that is, the narrow es-
cape of Telfik Bey."
Young Mr. McIntyre looked baffled. "I'm blessed
if I know what you're up to, Jones," he said. "But
if you do know anything of this case I need your
help. In Washington, where they failed, we fooled
the newspapers. Here, where they've succeeded—"
"Who are 'they?' " interrupted Jones.
"That's what I'm here to get at. The murderers
of Telfik Bey, of course. My instructions are to
find out secretly, if at all. For if it does get into
the newspapers there'll be the very deuce to pay. It
isn't desirable that even Telfik Bey's presence here
should have been known for reasons which—ah—
(here Average Jones remarked the resumption of
his friend's official bearing)—which, not being for
the public, I need not detail to you."


THE MERCY SIGN 137
"You need not, in point of fact, tell me anything
about it at all," observed Average Jones equably.
Pomposity fell away from Mr. Thomas Colvin
McIntyre, leaving him palpably shivering.
"But I need your help. Need it very much. You
know something about handling the newspapers,
don't you?"
"I know how to get things in; not how to keep
them out."
The other groaned. "It may already be too late.
What newspapers have you there?"
"All of 'em. Want me to look?"
Mr. McIntyre braced himself.
"Turk dies at Palatia," read Average Jones.
"Mm—heart disease . . . wealthy Stamboul
merchant . . . studying American methods . . .
Turkish minister notified."
"Is that all?"
"Practically."
"And the other reports?"
Average Jones ran them swiftly over. "Abouf
the same. Hold on! Here's a little something ex-
tra in the Universal."
"'Found on the floor . . . bell-boy who dis-
covered the tragedy collapses . . . condition se-
rious . . . Supposedly shock—'"
"What's that?" interrupted young Mr. McIntyre,
half rising. "Shot?"


138 AVERAGE JONES
"You're nervous, Tommy. I didn't say 'shot.* 1
said 'shock.'"
"Oh, of course. Shock—the bell-boy, it means."
"See here; first thing you know you'll be getting
me interested. Hadn't you better open up or shut
up?"
Mr. McIntyre took a long breath and a resolu-
tion simultaneously.
"At any rate I can trust you," he said. "Telfik
Bey is not a merchant. He is a secret, confidential
agent of the Turkish government. He came over to
New York from Washington in spite of warnings
that he would be killed."
"You're certain he was killed?"
"I only wish I could believe anything else."
"Shot?"
"The coroner and a physician whom I sent can
find no trace of a wound."
"What do they say?"
"Apoplexy."
"The refuge of the mystified medico. It doesn't
satisfy you?"
"It won't satisfy the State Department."
"And possibly not the newspapers, eventually."
"Come up with me and look the place over, Aver-
age. Let me send for the manager."
That functionary came, a vision of perturbation
in a pale-gray coat. Upon assurance that Average


THE MERCY SIGN 139
Jones was "safe" he led the way to the rooms so
hastily vacated by the spirit of the Turkish guest.
"We've succeeded in keeping two recent suicides
and a blackmail scheme in this hotel out of the news-
papers," observed the manager morosely. "But
this would be the worst of all. If I could have
known, when the Turkish Embassy reserved the
apartment—"
"The Turkish Embassy never reserved any apart-
ment for Telfik Bey," put in the Fifth Assistant
Secretary of State.
"Surely you are mistaken, sir," replied the hotel
man. "I saw their emissary myself. He specified
for rooms on the south side, either the third or
fourth floor. Wouldn't have anything else."
"You gave him a definite reservation?" asked
Jones.
"Yes; 335 and 336."
"Has the man been here since?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"A Turk, you think?"
"I suppose so. Foreign, anyway."
"Anything about him strike you particularly?"
"Well, he was tall and thin and looked sickly.
He talked very soft, too, like a sick man."
The characterization of the Pearlington station
agent recurred to the interrogator's mind. "Had he
—er—white hair?" he half yawned.


i4o AVERAGE JONES
"No," replied the manager, and, in the same
breath, the budding diplomat demanded:
"What are you up to, Average? Why should
he?"
Average Jones turned to him. "To what other
hotels would the Turkish Embassy be likely to send
its men?"
"Sometimes their charge d'affaires goes to the
Nederstrom."
"Go up there and find out whether a room has
been reserved for Telfik Bey, and if so—"
"They wouldn't reserve at two hotels, would
they?"'
"—by whom," concluded Average Jones, shak-
ing his head at the interruption. "Find out who oc-
cupied or reserved the apartments on either side."
Mr. Thomas Colvin McIntyre lifted a wrinkling
eyebrow. "Really, Jones," he observed, "you seem
to be employing me rather in the capacity of a mes-
senger boy."
"If you think a messenger boy could do it as
well, ring for one," drawled Average Jones, in his
mildest voice. "Meantime, I'll be in the Turk's
room here."
Numbers 335 and 336, which the manager opened,
after the prompt if somewhat sulky departure of
Mr. McIntyre, proved to consist of a small sitting-
room, a bedroom and a bath, each with a large win-


THE MERCY SIGN 141
dow giving on the cross-street, well back from Fifth
Avenue.
"Here's where he was found." The manager
indicated a spot near the wall of the sitting-room
and opposite the window. "He had just pushed the
button when he fell."
"How do you know that?"
"Bronson, the bell-boy on that call, answered. He
knocked several times and got no answer. Then he
opened the door and saw Mr. Telfik down, all in a
heap."
"Where is Bronson?"
"At the hospital, unconscious."
"What from?"
"Shock, the doctors say."
"What—er—about the—er—shot?"
The manager looked startled. "Well, Bronson
says that just as he opened the door he saw a bullet
cross the room and strike the wall above the body."
"You can't see a bullet in flight."
"He saw this one," insisted the manager. "As
soon as it struck it exploded. Three other people
heard it."
"What did Bronson do?"
"Lost his head and ran out. He hadn't got half-
way to the elevator when he fell, in a sort of faint-
ing fit. He came to long enough to tell his story.
Then he got terribly nauseated and went off again."


i42 AVERAGE JONES
"He's sure the man had fallen before the ex-
plosion?"
"Absolutely."
"And he got no answer to his knocking?"
"No. That's why he went in. He thought some-
thing might be wrong."
"Had anybody else been in the room or past it
within a few minutes?"
"Absolutely no one. The floor girl's desk is just
outside. She must have seen anyone going in."
"Has she anything to add?"
"She heard the shot . And a minute or two before,
she had heard and felt a jar from the room."
"Corroborative of the man having fallen before
the shot," commented Jones.
"When I got here, five minutes later, he was quite
dead," continued the manager.
Evidence of the explosion was slight to the inves-
tigating eye of Average Jones. The wall showed an
abrasion, but, as the investigator expected, no bullet
hole. Against the leg of a desk he found a small
metal shell, which he laid on the table.
"There's your bullet," he observed with a smile.
"It's a cartridge, anyway," cried the hotel man.
"He must have been shot, after all."
"From inside the room? Hardly! And certainly
not with that. It's a very small fulminate of mer-


THE MERCY SIGN 143
cury shell, and never held lead. No. The man was
down, if not dead, before that went off."
Average Jones was now at the window. Taking
a piece of paper from his pocket he brushed the con-
tents of the window-sill upon it. A dozen dead flies
rolled upon the paper. He examined them thought-
fully, cast them aside and turned back to the man-
ager.
"Who occupy the adjoining rooms?"
"Two maiden ladies did, on the east. They've
left," said the manager bitterly. "Been coming here
for ten years, and now they've quit. If the facts
ever get in the newspapers—"
"What's on the west, adjoining?"
"Nothing. The corridor runs down there."
"Then it isn't probable that any one got into the
room from either side."
"Impossible," said the manager.
Here Mr. Thomas Colvin McIntyre arrived with
a flushed face.
"You are right, Average," he said. "The same
man had reserved rooms at the Nederstrom for Tel-
fik Bey."
"What's the location?"
"Tenth floor; north side. He had insisted on
both details. Nos. 1015, 1017."
"What neighbors?"


144 AVERAGE JONES
"Bond salesman on one side, Reverend and Mrs.
Salisbury, of Wilmington, on the other."
"Um-m-m. What across the street?"
"How should I know? You didn't tell me to
ask."
"It's the Glenargan office building, just opened,
Mr. Jones," volunteered the manager.
Average Jones turned again to the window, closed
it and fastened his handkerchief in the catch.
"Leave that there," he directed the manager.
"Don't let any one into this room. I'm off."
Stopping to telephone, Average Jones ascertained
that there were no vacant offices on the tenth floor,
south side of the Glenargan apartment building, fac-
ing the Nederstrom Hotel. The last one had been
let two weeks before to—this he ascertained by judi-
cious questioning—a dark, foreign gentleman who
was an expert on rugs. Well satisfied, the investi-
gator crossed over to the skyscraper across from the
Palatia. There he demanded of the superintend-
ent a single office on the third floor, facing north.
He was taken to a clean and vacant room. One
glance out of the window showed him his handker-
chief, not opposite, but well to the west.
"Too near Fifth Avenue," he said. "I don't like
the roar of the traffic."
"There's one other room on this floor, farther
along," said the superintendent, "but it isn't in or-


146 AVERAGE JONES
scrubwoman heard him when she came this morn*
ing.
"Heard him?"
• "Yes, sir. Sobbing, like."
The nerves of Average Jones gave a sharp "kick-
back," like a mis-cranked motor-car. His trend of
thought had suddenly been reversed. The devious
and scientific slayer of Telfik Bey in tears? It
seemed completely out of the picture.
"You may go," said he, and seating himself at the
desk, proceeded to an examination of his newly
acquired property. The newspapers in the scrap
basket, mainly copies of the Evening Register,
seemed to contain, upon cursory examination, noth-
ing germane to the issue. But, scattered among
them, the searcher found a number of fibrous chips.
They were short and thick; such chips as might be
made by cutting a bamboo pole into cross lengths,
convenient for carrying.
"The 'spirit-wand,'" observed Average Jones
with gusto. "That was the 'little package,' of
course."
Next,.he turned his attention to the desk. It was
bare, except for a few scraps of paper and some
writing implements. But in a crevice there shone a
glimmer of glass. With a careful finger-nail Aver-
age Jones pushed out a small phial. It had evi-
dently been sealed with lead. Nothing was in it.


THE MERCY SIGN 147
Its discoverer leaned back and contemplated it with
stiffened eyelids. For, upon its tiny, improvised
label was scrawled the "Mercy sign;" mysterious
before, now all but incredible.
For silent minutes Average Jones sat bemused.
Then, turning in a messenger call, he drew to him
a sheet of paper, upon which he slowly and consid-
eringly wrote a few words.
"You get a dollar extra if this reaches the adver-
tising desk of the Register office within half an
hour," he advised the uniformed urchin who an-
swered the call. The modern mercury seized the
paper and fled forthwith.
Punctuality was a virtue which Average Jones
had cultivated to the point of a fad. Hence it was
with some discountenance that his clerk was obliged
to apologize for his lateness, first, at 4 p. m. of July
23, to a very dapper and spruce young gentleman
in pale mauve spats, who wouldn't give his name;
then at 4:05 p. m. of the same day to Professor
Gehren, of the Metropolitan University; and finally
at 4 30 p. m. to Mr. Robert Bertram. When, only
a moment before five, the Ad-Visor entered, the
manner of his apology was more absent than
fervent
.
Bertram held out a newspaper to him.
"Cast your eye on that," said he. "The Register
fairly reeks with freaks lately."


148 AVERAGE JONES
Average Jones read aloud.
SMITH-PERKINS, formerly 74 Bellair—Send
map present location H. C. Turkish Triumph
about smoked out. Mercy—Box 34, Office.
"Oh, I don't know about its being so freakish,"
said Average Jones.
"Nonsense! Look at it! Turkish Triumph—
that's a cigarette, isn't it? H. C.—what's that? And
signed Mercy. Why, it's the work of a lunatic!"
"It's my work," observed Average Jones blandly.
The three visitors stared at him in silence.
"Rather a forlorn hope, but sometimes a bluff will
go," he continued.
"If H. C. indicates Harvey Craig, as I infer,"
said Professor Gehren impatiently, "are you so in-
fantile as to suppose that his murderer will give in-
formation about him?"
Average Jones smiled, drew a letter from his
pocket, glanced at it and called for a number in
Hackensack.
"Take the 'phone, Professor Gehren," he said,
when the reply came. "It's the Cairnside Hospital.
Ask for information about Harvey Craig."
With absorbed intentness the other three listened
to the one-sided conversation.
"Hello! . . . May I speak to Mr. Harvey


THE MERCY SIGN 14*
Craig's doctor? . . . This is Professor Gehren
of the Metropolitan University . . . Thank you,
Doctor. How is he? . . . Very grave? . . .
Ah, has been very grave. . . . Wholly out of
danger? . . . What was the nature of his illness?
. . . When may I see him? . . . Very well. I
will visit the hospital to-morrow morning. Thank
you. ... I should have expected that you would
notify me of his presence." ... A long silence
intervened, then "Good-by."
"It is most inexplicable," declared Professor Geh-
ren, turning to the others. "The doctor states that
Harvey was brought there at night, by a foreigner
who left a large sum of money to pay for his care,
and certain suggestions for his treatment. One de-
tail, carefully set down in writing, was that if red-
dish or purple dots appeared under Harvey's nails,
he was to be told that Mr. Smith released him and
advised his sending for his friends at once."
"Reddish or purple dots, eh?" repeated Average
Jones. "I should like—er—to have talked with—
er—that doctor before you cut off."
"And I, sir," said the professor, with the grim
repression of the thinker stirred to wrath, "should
like to interview this stranger."
"Perfectly feasible, 1 think," returned Average.
Jones.


ISO AVERAGE JONES
"You don't mean that you've located him al-
ready!" cried young Mr. McIntyre.
"He was so obliging as to save me the trouble."
Average Jones held up the letter from which he
had taken the Cairnside Hospital's telephone num-
ber. "The advertisement worked to a charm. Mr.
Smith gives his address in this, and intimates that I
may call upon him."
Young Mr. McIntyre rose.
"You're going to see him, then?"
"At once."
"Did I understand you to imply that I am at lib-
erty to accompany you?" inquired Professor Geh-
ren.
"If you care to take the risk."
"Think there'll be excitement?" asked Bertram
languidly. "I'd like to go along."
Average Jones nodded. "One or a dozen; I
fancy it will be all the same to Smith."
"You think we'll find him dead." Young Mr.
McIntyre leaped to this conclusion. "Count me in
on it."
"N—no; not dead."
"Perhaps his friend 'Mercy' has gone back on
him, then," suggested Mr. McIntyre, unabashed.
"Yes; I rather think that's it," said Average
Jones, in a curious accent. "'Mercy' has gone back


THE MERCY SIGN 151
en him, I believe, though I can't quite accurately
place her as yet. Here's the taxi," he broke off.
"All aboard that's going aboard. But it's likely to
be dangerous."
Across town and far up the East Side whizzed the
car, over the bridge that leads away from Manhat-
tan Island to the north, and through quiet streets
as little known to the average New Yorker as are
Hong Kong and Caracas. In front of a frame
house it stopped. On a side porch, over which
bright roses swarmed like children clambering into
a hospitable lap, sat a man with a gray face. He
was tall and slender, and his hair, a dingy black,
was already showing worn streaks where the color
had faded. At Average Jones he gazed with un-
concealed surprise.
"Ah; it is you!" he exclaimed. "You," he smiled,
"are the 'Mercy' of the advertisement?"
"Yes."
"And these gentlemen?"
"Are my friends."
"You will come in?"
Average Jones examined a nodding rose with an
indulgent, almost a paternal, expression.
"If you—er—think it—er—safe," he murmured.
"Assuredly."
As if exacting a pledge the young man held out


THE MERCY SIGN 153
and glinted—"came to his reward. Will you enter,
gentlemen?"
"I know this much," replied Average Jones as,
followed by his friends, he passed through the door
which their host held open. "With young Craig as
assistant, you prepared, in the loneliest part of the
Hackensack Meadows, some kind of poison which,
I believe, can be made with safety only in the open
air."
The foreigner smiled and shook his head.
"Not with safety, even then," he said. "But
go on."
"You found that your man was coming to New
York. Knowing that he would probably put up at
the Palatia or the Nederstrom, you reserved rooms
for him at both, and took an office across from each.
As it was hot weather, you calculated upon his win-
dows being open. You watched for him. When
he came you struck him down in his own room with
the poison."
"But how?" It was the diplomat who inter-
rupted.
"I think with a long blow-gun."
"By George!" said Bertram softly. "So the
spirit-wand of bamboo was a blow-gun T What led
you to that, Average?"
"The spirit rappings which the talky woman in
the Bellair Street apartment used to hear. That and


154 AVERAGE JONES
the remnants of putty I found near the window.
You see, the doors opening through the whole length
of the apartment gave a long range, where Mr.—er
—Smith could practise. He had a sort of target
on the window, and every time he blew a putty ball
Mrs. Doubletongue heard the spirit . Am I right,
sir?"
The host bowed.
"The fumes, whatever they were, killed swiftly?"
"They did. Instantly; mercifully. Too merci-
fully."
"How could you know it was fumes?" demanded
Mr. Thomas Colvin McIntyre.
"By the dead flies, the effect upon the bell-boy,
and the fact that no wound was found on the body.
Then, too, there was the fulminate of mercury
shell."
"Of what possible use was that?" asked Professor
Gehren.
"A question that I've asked myself, sir, a great
many times over in the last twenty-four hours. Per-
haps Mr. Smith could answer that best . Though—
er—I think the shell was blown through the blow-
pipe to clear the deadly fumes from the room by its
explosion, before any one else should suffer. Mr.
Smith is, at least, not a wanton slaughterer."
"You are right, sir, and I thank you," said the
foreigner. He drew himself up weakly but with


THE MERCY SIGN 155
pride. "Gentlemen, I am not a murderer. I am an
avenger. It would have gone hard with my con-
science had any innocent person met death through
me. As for that Turkish dog, you shall judge for
yourself whether he did not die too easily."
From among the papers in a tiroir against the
wall he took a French journal, and read, translating
fluently. The article was a bald account of the tor-
ture, outrage and massacre of Armenian women and
girls, at Adana, by the Turks. The most hideous
portion of it was briefly descriptive of the atrocities
perpetrated by order of a high Turkish official upon
a mother and two young daughters. "An Armenian
prisoner, being dragged by in chains, went mad
at the sight," the correspondent stated.
"I was that prisoner," said the reader. "The of-
ficial was Telfik Bey. I saw my naked daughter
break from the soldiers and run to him, pleading for
pity, as he sat his horse; and I saw him strike his
spur into her bare breast. My wife, the mother of
my children—"
"Don't!" The protest came from the Fifth As-
sistant Secretary of State.
He had risen. His smooth-skinned face was con-
tracted, and the sweat stood beaded on his forehead.
"I—I can't stand it. I've got my duty to do. This
man has made a confession."
"Your pardon," said the foreigner. "I have lived


156 AVERAGE JONES
and fed on and slept with that memory, evdr
since. On my release I left my country. The en-
terprise of which I had been the head, dye-stuff
manufacturing, had interested me in chemistry. I
went to England to study further. Thence I came
to America to wait."
"You have heard his confession, all of you," said
young Mr. McIntyre, rising. "I shall have him put
under arrest pending advice from Washington."
"You may save yourself the trouble, I think,
Tommy," drawled Average Jones. "Mr. Smith will
never be called to account in this world for the
murd— execution of Telfik Bey."
"You saw the marks on my finger-nails," said the
foreigner. "That is the sure sign. I may live twen-
ty-four hours; I may live twice or three times that
period. The poison does its work, once it gets into
the blood, and there is no help. It matters nothing.
My ambition is satisfied."
"And it is because of this that you let us find
you?" asked Bertram.
"I had a curiosity to know who had so strangely
traced my actions."
"But what was the poison?" asked Professor
Gehren.
"I think Mr. Jones has more than a suspicion,"
replied the doomed man, with a smile. "You will
find useful references on yonder shelf, Mr. Jones."


THE MERCY SIGN 157
Moving across to the shelf, Average Jones took
down a heavy volume and ran quickly over the
leaves.
"Ah!" he said presently, and not noticing, in his
absorption, that the host had crossed again to the
tiroir and was quietly searching in a compartment,
he read aloud:
"Little is known of cyanide of cacodyl, in its
action the swiftest and most deadly of existing poi-
sons. In the '4o's, Bunsen, the German chemist,
combined oxide of cacodyl with cyanogen, a radical
of prussic acid, producing cyanide of cacodyl, or di-
methyl arsine cyanide. As both of its components
are of the deadliest description, it is extremely dan-
gerous to make. It can be made only in the open air,
and not without the most extreme precaution known
to science. Mr. Lacelles Scott, of England, nearly
lost his life experimenting with it in 1904. A small
fraction of a grain gives off vapor sufficient to kill
a human being instantly."
"Had you known about this stuff, Average?"
asked Bertram.
"No, I'd never heard of it. But from its action
and from the lettered cabinet I judged that—"
"This is all very well," broke in Mr. Assistant
Secretary Thomas Colvin McIntyre, "but I want
this man arrested. How can we know that he isn't
shamming and may not escape us, after all?"
"By this," retorted their host. He held aloft a


158 AVERAGE JONES
small glass vial, lead-sealed, and staggered weakly
to the door.
"Stop him!" said Average Jones sharply.
The door closed on the words. There was a heavy
fall without, followed by the light tinkle of glass.
Average Jones, who had half crossed the room in
a leap, turned to his friends, warning them back.
"Too late. We can't go out yet. Wait for the
fumes to dissipate."
They stood, the four men, rigid. Presently Aver-
age Jones, opening a rear window, leaped to the
ground, followed by the others, and came around
the corner of the porch. The dead man lay with a
peaceful face. Professor Gehren uncovered.
"God forgive him," he said. "Who shall say that
he was not right?"
"Not I," said the young assistant secretary in
awed tones. "I'm glad he—escaped. But what am
I to do? Here we are with a dead body on our
hands, and a state secret to be kept from the prying
police."
Average Jones stood thinking for a moment, then
he entered the room and called up the coroner's
office on the telephone.
"Listen, you men," he said to his companions.
Then, to the official who answered: "There's a sui-
cide at 428 Elliver Avenue, the Bronx. Four of us
witnessed it. We had come to keep an appointment


THE MERCY SIGN 159
with the man in connection with a discovery he
claimed in metallurgy, and found him dying. Yes;
we will wait here. Good-by." \
Returning to the porch again, he cleared away the
fragments of glass, aided by Bertram. To one of
these clung a shred of paper. For all his languid
self-control the club dilettante shivered a little as
he thrust at it with a stick.
"Look, Average; it's the 'Mercy' sign again.
What a hideous travesty!"
Average Jones shook his head.
"It isn't 'Mercy,' Bert. It's the label that he at-
tached, for precaution, to everything that had to do
with his deadly stuff. The formula for cyanide of
cacodyl is 'Me-2cy.' It was the scrawly handwriting
that misled; that's all."
"So I was right when I suggested that his 'Mercy'
had gone back on him," said Mr. Thomas Colvin
McIntyre, with a semi-hysterical giggle.
Average Jones looked from the peaceful face of
the dead to the label, fluttering in the light breeze.
"No," he said gravely. "You were wrong. It
was his friend to the last."


CHAPTER VI
BLUE FIRES
"X^ ABS for comfort; cars for company," was an
V^l apothegm which *erage Jones had evolved
from experience. A professed student of life, he
maintained, must keep in touch with life at every
feasible angle. No experience should come amiss
to a detective; he should be a pundit of all knowl-
edge. A detective he now frankly considered him-
self; and the real drudgery of his unique profession
of Ad-Visor was supportable only because of the
compensating thrill of the occasional chase, the radi-
ance of the Adventure of Life glinting from time
to time across his path.
There were few places, Average Jones held, where
human nature in the rough can be studied to better
advantage than in the stifling tunnels of the sub-
way or the close-packed sardine boxes of the metro-
politan surface lines. It was in pursuance of this
theory that he encountered the Westerner, on a
Third avenue car. By custom, Average Jones picked
out the most interesting or unusual human being in
any assembly where he found himself, for study and
160


BLUE FIRES 161
analysis. This man was peculiar in that he alone
was not perspiring in the sodden August humidity.
The clear-browned skin and the rangy strength of
the figure gave him a certain distinction. He held in
his sinewy hands a doubly folded newspaper. Pres-
ently it slipped from his hold to the seat beside him.
He stared at the window opposite with harassed
and unseeing eyes. Abruptly he rose and went out
on the platform. Average Jones picked up the pa-
per. In the middle of the column to which it was
folded was a marked advertisement:
ARE you in an embarrassing position? Anything,
anywhere, any time, regardless of nature or loca-
tion. Everybody's friend. Consultation at all hours.
Suite 15a, Owl Building, Brooklyn.
The car was nearing Brooklyn Bridge. Average
Jones saw his man drop lightly off. He followed
and at the bridge entrance caught him up.
"You've left your paper," said he.
The stranger whirled quickly. "Right," he said
"Thanks. Perhaps you can tell me where the Owl
Building is."
"Are you going there?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't."
A slight wrinkle of surprise appeared on the
man's tanned forehead.
"Perhaps you wouldn't," he returned coolly.


i62 AVERAGE JONES
"In other words, 'mind your business,' " said Av-
erage Jones, with a smile.
"Something of that sort," admitted the stranger.
"Nevertheless, I wouldn't consult with Every-
body's Friend over in the Owl Building."
"Why?"
"Er—because—er—if I may speak plainly,"
drawled Average Jones, "I wouldn't risk a woman's
name with a gang of blackmailers."
"You've got your nerve," retorted the stranger.
The keen eyes, flattening almost to slits, fixed on
the impassive face of the other.
"Well, I'll go you," he decided, after a moment.
His glance swept the range of vision and settled
upon a rathskeller sign. "Come over there where
we can talk."
They crossed the grilling roadway, and, being
wise in the heat, ordered "soft" drinks.
"Now," said the stranger, "you've declared in on
my game. Make good. What's your interest?"
"None, personally. I like your looks, that's all,"
replied the other frankly. "And I don't like to see
you run into that spider's web."
"You know them?"
"Twice in the last year I've made 'em change
their place of business."
"But you don't know me. And you spoke of—
of a woman."


BLUE FIRES 165
you can help me. What are you? A sort of
detective?"
"Only on the side." Average Jones drew a card
from his pocket, and tendered it:
A. JONES, Ad-Visor
Advice upon all matters connected with
Advertising
Attar Court Temple 2 to 5 P. M.
"Ad-Visor, eh?" repeated the other. "Well,
there's going to be an advertisement in the Evening
Truth to-day, by me. Here's a proof of it."
Average Jones took the slip and read it
.
LOST—Necklace of curious blue stones from Hotel
Denton, night of August 6. Reward greater than
value of stones for return to hotel. No questions
asked.
"Reward greater than value of stones," com-
mented Average Jones. "There's a sentimental in-
terest, then?"
"Will you take the case?" returned Kirby ab-
ruptly.
"At least I'll look into it," replied Average Jones.
"Come to the hotel, then, and lunch with me, and
I'll open up the whole thing."


166 AVERAGE JONES
^Across a luncheon-table, at the quiet, old-fash-
ioned Hotel Denton, Kirby unburdened himself.
"You know all that's necessary about me. The
—the other party in the matter is Mrs. Hale. She's
a young widow. We've been engaged for six
months; were to be married in a fortnight. Now she
insists on a postponement. That's where I want your
help."
Average Jones moved uneasily in his chair.
"Really, Mr. Kirby, lovers' quarrels aren't in my
line."
"There's been no quarrel. We're as much en-
gaged now as ever, in spite of the return of the ring.
It's only her infem— her deep-rooted superstition
that's caused this trouble. One can't blame her; her
father and mother were both killed in an accident
after some sort of 'ghostly warning.' The first thing
I gave her, after our engagement, was a necklace of
these stones"—he tapped his scarfpin—"that I'd se-
lected, one by one, myself. They're beautiful, as you
see, but they're not particularly valuable; only semi-
precious. The devil of it is that they're the subject
of an Indian legend. The Indians and Mexicans
call them "blue fires," and say they have the power
to bind and loose in love. Edna has been out in that
country; she's naturally high strung and responsive
to that sort of thing, as I told you, and she fairly
soaked in all that nonsense. To make it worse, when


BLUE FIRES 167
I sent them to her I wrote that—that—" a dull red
surged up under the tan skin—"that as long as the
fire in the stones burned blue for her my heart would
be all hers. Now the necklace is gone. You can
imagine the effect on a woman of that temperament.
And you can see the result." He pointed with a
face of misery to the solitaire on his watch-chain.
"She insisted on giving this back. Says that a
woman as careless as she proved herself can't be
trusted with jewelry. And she's hysterically sure
that misfortune will follow us for ever if we're mar-
ried without recovering the fool necklace. So she's
begged a postponement."
"Details," said Average Jones crisply.
"She's here at this hotel. Has a small suite on the
third floor. Came down from her home in central
New York to meet my mother, whom she had never
seen. Mother's here, too, on the same floor. Night
before last Mrs. Hale thought she heard a noise in
her outer room. She made a look-see, but found
nothing. In the morning when she got up, about
ten (she's a late riser) the necklace was gone."
"Where had it been left?"
"On a stand in her sitting-room."
"Anything else taken?"
"That's the strange part of it. Her purse, with
over a hundred dollars in it, which lay under the
necklace, wasn't touched."


168 AVERAGE JONES
"Does she usually leave valuables around in that
casual way?"
"Well, you see, she's always stayed at the Denton,
and she felt perfectly secure here."
"Any other thefts in the hotel?"
"Not that I can discover. But one of the guests
on the same floor with Mrs. Hale saw a fellow act-
ing queerly that same night. There he sits, yonder,
at that table. I'll ask him to come over."
The guest, an elderly man, already interested in
the case, was willing enough to tell all he knew.
"I was awakened by some one fumbling at my
door and making a clinking noise," he explained.
"I called out. Nobody answered. Almost immedi-
ately I heard a noise across the hall. I opened my
door. A man was fussing at the keyhole of the
room opposite. He was very clumsy. I said, 'Is
that your room?' He didn't even look at me. In a
moment he started down the hallway. He walked
very fast, and I could hear him muttering to himself.
He seemed to be carrying something in front of him
with both hands. It was his keys, I suppose. Any-
way I could hear it clink. At the end of the hall
he stopped, turned to the door at the left and fum-
bled at the keyhole for quite a while. I could hear
his keys clink again. This time, I suppose, he had
the right room, for he unlocked it and went in. I


i jo AVERAGE JONES
around the outer room, but there was nobody
there."
"You didn't think to look for the necklace?"
"No," she said with a little gasp; "if I only had!"
"And—er—you didn't happen to hear any clink-
ing noise, did you?"
"No."
"After he'd got into the room he'd put the key
up, wouldn't he?" suggested Kirby.
"You're assuming that he had a key."
"Of course he had a key. The guest across the
hall saw him trying it on the other doors and heard
it clink against the lock."
"If he had a key to this room why did he try it
on several other doors first?" propounded Average
Jones. "As for the clinking noise, in which I'm a
good deal interested—may I look at your key, Mrs.
Hale?"
She handed it to him. He tried it on the lock,
outside, jabbing at the metal setting. The resultant
sound was dull and wooden. "Not much of the
clink which our friend describes as having heard, is
it?" he remarked.
"Then how could he get into my room?" cried
Mrs. Hale.
"Are you sure your door was locked?"
"Certain. As soon as I missed the necklace.I
looked at the catch."


BLUE FIRES 171
"That was in the morning. But the night be-
fore?"
"I always slip the spring. And I know I did this
time because it had been left unsprung so that Mr.
Kirby's mother could come in and out of my sit-
ting-room, and I remember springing it when she
left for bed."
"Sometimes these locks don't work." Slipping
the catch back, Average Jones pressed the lever
down. There was a click, but the ward failed to slip.
At the second attempt the lock worked. But re-
peated trials proved that more than half the time the
door did not lock.
"So," observed Average Jones, "I think we may
dismiss the key theory."
"But the locked door this morning?" cried Mrs.
Hale.
"The intruder may have done that as he left."
"I don't see why," protested Kirby, in a tone
which indicated a waning faith in Jones.
"By way of confusing the trail. Possibly he
hoped to suggest that he'd escaped by the fire-es-
cape. Presumably he was on the balcony when Mrs.
Hale came out into this room."
As he spoke Average Jones laid a hand on the
heavy net curtains which hung before the balcony
window. Instead of parting them, however, he
stood with upturned eyes.


172 AVERAGE JONES
"Was that curtain torn before yesterday?" he
asked Mrs. Hale.
"I hardly think so. The hotel people are very
careful in the up-keep of the rooms."
Jones mounted a chair with scant respect for the
upholstery, and examined the damaged drapery.
Descending, he tugged tentatively at the other cur-
tain, first with his right hand, then with his left;
then with both. The fabric gave a little at the last
test. Jones disappeared through the window.
When he returned, after five minutes, he held in
his hand some scrapings of the rusted iron which
formed the balcony railing.
"You're a mining man, Mr. Kirby," he said.
"Would you say that assayed anything?"
Kirby examined the glinting particles. "Gold,"
he said decisively.
"Ah, then the necklace rubbed with some violence
against the railing. Now, Mrs. Hale, how long were
you awake?"
"Ten or fifteen minutes. I remember that a con-
tinuous rattling of wagons below kept up for a little
while. And I heard one of the drivers call out
something about taking the air."
"Er—really!" Average Jones became suddenly
absorbed in his seal ring. He turned it_around five
accurate times and turned it back an equal number
of revolutions. "Did he—er—get any answer?"


BLUE FIRES 173
"Not that I heard."
The young man pondered, then drew a chair up to
Mrs. Hale's escritoire, and, with an abrupt "excuse
me," helped himself to pen, ink and paper.
"There!" he said, after five minutes' work.
"That'll do for a starter. You see," he added,
handing the product of his toil to Mrs. Hale, "this
street happens to be the regular cross-town route for
the milk that comes over by one of the minor ferries.
If you heard a number of wagons passing in the
early morning they were the milk-vans. Hence
this."
Mrs. Hale read:
"Milk-Drivers, Attention—Delaware Central
mid-town route. Who talked to man outside hotel
early morning of August 7? Twenty dollars to right
man. Apply personally to Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor
Court Temple, New York."
"For the coming issue of the Milk-Dealers? Jour-
nal," explained its author. "Now, Mr. Kirby, I
want you to find out for me—Mrs. Hale can help
you, since she has known the hotel people for years
—the names of all those who gave up rooms on this
floor, or the floors above or below, yesterday morn-
ing, and ask whether they are known to the hotel
people."
"You think the thief is still in the hotel?" cried
Mrs. Hale.


174 AVERAGE JONES
"Hardly. But I think I see smoke from your
blue fires. To make out the figure through the
smoke is not—" Average Jones broke off, shaking
his head. He was still shaking his head when he
left the hotel.
It took three days for the milk-journal advertise-
ment to work. On the afternoon of August tenth, a
lank, husky-voiced teamster called at the office of the
Ad-Visor and was passed in ahead of the waiting
line.
"I'm after that twenty," he declared.
"Earn it," said Average Jones with equal brevity.
"Hotel Denton. Guy on the third floor balcony."
"Right so far."
"Leanin' on the rail as if he was sick. I give him
a hello. 'Takin' a nip of night air, Bill?' I says. He
didn't say nothin'."
"Did he do anything?"
"Kinder fanned himself an' jerked his head back
over his shoulder. Meanin' it was too hot to sleep
inside, I reckon. It sure was hot!"
"Fanned himself? How?"
"Like this." The visitor raised his hands awk-
wardly, cupped them, and drew them toward his
face.
"Er—with both hands?"
"Yep."
"Did you see him go in?"


BLUE FIRES 175
"Nope."
"Here's your twenty," said Average Jones.
"You're long on sense and short on words. I wish
there were more like you."
"Thanks. Thanks again," said the teamster, and
went out.
Meantime Kirby had sent his list of the guests
who had given up their rooms on August seventh:
George M. Weaver, Jr., Utica, N. Y., well known
to hotel people and vouched for by them.
Walker Parker, New Orleans, ditto.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hull; quiet elderly people;
first visit to hotel.
Henry M. Gillespie, Locke, N. Y. Middle-aged
man; new guest.
C. F. Willard, Chicago; been going to hotel for
ten years; vouched for by hotel people.
Armed with the list, Average Jones went to the
Hotel Denton and spent a busy morning.
"I've had a little talk with the hotel servants,"
said he to Kirby, when the latter called to make
inquiries. "Mr. Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke, New
York, had room 168. It's on the same floor with
Mrs. Hale's suite, at the farther end of the hall. He
had only one piece of luggage, a suitcase marked
H. M. G. That information I got from the porter.
He left his room in perfect order except for one
thing: one of the knobs on the headboard of the old-


176 AVERAGE JONES
fashioned bed was broken off short. He didn't men-
tion the matter to the hotel people."
"What do you make of that?"
"It was a stout knob. Only a considerable effort
of strength exerted in a peculiar way would have
bioken it as it was broken. There was something
unusual going on in room 168, all right."
"Then you think Henry M. Gillespie, of Locke,
New York, is our man."
"No," said Average Jones.
The Westerner's square jaw fell. "Why not?"
"Because there's no such person as Henry M. Gil-
lespie, of Locke, New York. I've just sent there
and found out."
Three stones of the fire-blue necklace returned on
the current of advertised appeal. One was brought
in by the night bartender of a "sporting" club. He
had bought it from a man who had picked it up in
a gutter; just where, the finder couldn't remember.
For the second a South Brooklyn pawnbroker de-
manded (and received) an exorbitant reward. A
florist in Greenwich, Connecticut, contributed the
last. With that patient attention to detail which is
the A. B. C. of detective work, Average Jones traced
down these apparently incongruous wanderings of
the stones and then followed them all back to Mrs.
Hale's fire-escape.


BLUE FIRES 177
The bartender's stone offered no difficulties. The
setting which the pawnbroker brought in had been
found on the city refuse heap by a scavenger. It
had fallen through a grating into the hotel cellar,
and had been swept out with the rubbish to go to
the municipal "dump." The apparent mystery of
the florist was lucid when Jones found that the hotel
exchanged its shop-worn plants with the Greenwich
Floral Company. His roaming eye, keen for every
detail, had noticed a row of tubbed azaleas within
the ground enclosure of the Denton. Recalling this
to mind, it was easy for the Ad-Visor to surmise
that the gem had dropped from the fire-escape into a
tub, which was, shortly after, shipped to the florist.
Thus it was apparent that the three jewels had been
stripped from the necklace by forcible contact with
the iron rail of the fire-escape at the point where
Average Jones had found the "color" of precious
metal. The stones were identified by Kirby, from a
peculiarity in the setting, as the end three, nearest
the clasp at the back; a point*which Jones carefully
noted. But there the trail ended. No more fire-blue
stones came in.
For three weeks Average Jones issued advertise-
ments like commands. The advertisements would,
perhaps, have struck the formal-minded Kirby as
evidences of a wavering intellect. Indeed, they


178 AVERAGE JONES
present a curious and incongruous appearance upon
the page of Average Jones' scrapbook, where they
now mark a successful conclusion.
The first reads as follows:
OH, YOU HOTEL MEN! Come through with the
dope on H. M. G. What's he done to your placer
Put a stamp on it and we'll swap dates on his past
performances. A. Jones, Astor Court Temple, New
York City.
This was spread abroad through the medium of
Mine Host's Weekly and other organs of the hotel
trade.
It was followed by this, of a somewhat later date:
WANTED—Slippery Sams, Human Eels, Fetter
Kings, etc. Liberal reward to artist who sold
second-hand props to amateur, with instructions for
use. Send full details, time and place to A. Jones,
Astor Court Temple, New York City.
Variety, the Clipper and the Billboard scattered
the appeal broadcast throughout "the profession."
Thousands read it, and one answered it. And with-
in a few days after Receiving that answer Jones
wired to Kirby:
"Probably found. Bring Mrs. Hale to-morrow
at ii. Answer. A. Jones."
Kirby answered. He also telegraphed volumi-
nously to his ex-fiancee, who had returned to her
home, and who replied that she would leave by the


BLUE FIRES 179
night train. Some minutes before the hour the pair
were at Average Jones' office. Kirby fairly pranced
with impatience while they were kept waiting in a
side room. The only other occupant was a man
with a large black dress-suit case, who sat at the
window in a slump of dejection. He raised his head
for a moment when they were summoned and let
it sag down again as they left.
Average Jones greeted his guests cordially. Their
first questions to him were significant of the mascu-
line and feminine differences in point of view.
"Have you got the necklace?" cried Mrs. Hale.
"Have you got the thief?" queried Kirby.
"I haven't got the necklace and I haven't got the
thief," announced Average Jones; "but I think I've
got the man who's got the necklace."
"Did the thief hand it over to him?" demanded
Kirby.
"Are you conversant with the Baconian system
of thought, which Old Chips used to preach to us
at Hamilton?" countered Average Jones.
"Forgotten it if I ever knew it," returned Kirby.
"So I infer from your repeated use of the word
'thief.' Bacon's principle—an admirable principle
in detective work—is that we should learn from
things and not from the names of things. You are
deluding yourself with a name. Because the law,
which is always rigid and sometimes stupid, says


180 AVERAGE JONES
that a man who takes that which does not belong to
him is a thief, you've got your mind fixed on the
name 'thief,' and the idea of theft. If I had gone
off on that tack I shouldn't have the interesting
privilege of introducing to you Mr. Harvey M.
Greene, who now sits in the outer room."
"H. M. G," said Kirby quickly. "Is it possible
that that decent-looking old boy out there is the
man who stole—"
"It is not" interrupted Average Jones with em-
phasis, "and I shall ask you, whatever may occur,
to guard your speech from offensive expressions of
that sort while he is here."
"All right, if you say so," acquiesced the other.
"But do you mind telling me how you figure out a
man traveling under an alias and helping himself to
other people's property on any other basis than that
he's a thief?"
"A, B, C," replied Average Jones; "as thus: A—
Thieves don't wander about in dressing-gowns.
B—Nor take necklaces and leave purses. C—Nor
strip gems violently apart and scatter them like
largess from fire-escapes. The rest of the alphabet
I postpone. Now for Mr. Greene."
The man from the outer room entered and nerv-
ously acknowledged his introduction to the others.
"Mr. Greene," explained Jones, "has kindly con-
sented to help clear up the events of the night of


BLUE FIRES 181
August sixth at the Hotel Denton and"—he paused
for a moment and shifted his gaze to the new-
comer's narrow shoes—"and—er—the loss of—er
—Mrs. Hale's jeweled necklace."
The boots retracted sharply, as under the im-
pulse of some sudden emotion; startled surprise,
for example. "What?" cried Greene, in obvious
amazement. "I don't know anything about a neck-
lace."
A twinkle of satisfaction appeared at the corners
of Average Jones' eyes.
"That also is possible," he admitted. "If you'll
permit the form of an examination; when you
came to the Hotel Denton on August sixth, did you
carry the same suitcase you now have with you,
and similarly packed?"
"Ye-es. As nearly as possible."
"Thank you. You were registered under the
name of Henry M. Gillespie?"
The other's voice was low and strained as he re-
plied in the affirmative.'
"For good reasons of your own?"
"Yes."
"For which same reasons you left the hotel quite
early on the following morning?"
"Yes."
"Your business compels you to travel a great
deal?"


i82 AVERAGE JONES
"Yes."
"Do you often register under an alias?"
"Yes," returned the other, his face twitching.
"But not always?"
"No."
"In a large city and a strange hotel, for ex-
ample, you'd take any name which would corre-
spond to the initials, H. M. G., on your dress-suit
case. But in a small town where you were known,
you'd be obliged to register under your real name
of Harvey M. Greene. It was that necessity
which enabled me to find you."
"I'd like to know how you did it," said the
other gloomily.
From the left-hand drawer of his desk Jones
produced a piece of netting, with hooks along one
end.
"Do you recognize the material, Mrs. Hale," he
asked.
"Why, it's the same stuff as the Hotel Denton cur-
tains, isn't it?" she asked.
"Yes," said Average Jones, attaching it to the
curtain rod at the side door. "Now, will you jerk|
that violently with one hand?"
"It will tear loose, won't it?" she asked.
"That's just what it will do. Try it."
The fabric ripped from the hooks as she jerked.
"You remember," said Jones, "that your curtain


BLUE FIRES 183
was torn partly across, and not ripped from the
hook at all. Now see."
He caught the netting in both hands and tautened
it sharply. It began to part.
"Awkward," he said, "yet it's the only way it
could have been done. Now, here's a bedpost, ex-
actly like the one in room 168, occupied by Mr.
Greene at the Denton. Kirby, you're a powerful
man. Can you break that knob off with one hand?"
He wedged the post firmly in a chair for the
trial. The bedpost resisted.
"Could you do it with both hands?" he asked.
"Probably, if I could get a hold. But there isn't
surface enough for a good hold."
"No, there isn't. But now." Jones coiled a rope
around the post and handed the end to Kirby. He
pulled sharply. The knob snapped and rolled on
the floor.
"Q. E. D.," said Kirby. "But it doesn't mean
anything to me."
"Doesn't it? Let me recall some other evidence.
The guest who saw Mr. Greene in the hallway
jthought he was carrying something in both hands.
The milk driver who hailed him on the balcony no-
ticed that he gestured awkwardly with both hands.
In what circumstances would a man use both hands
for action normally performed with one?"
"Too much drink," hazarded Kirby, looking du-


184 AVERAGE JONES
biously at Greene, who had been following Jones'
discourse with absorbed attention.
"Possibly. But it wouldn't fit this case."
"Physical weakness," suggested Mrs. Hale.
"Rather a shrewd suggestion. But no weakling
broke off that bedpost in Henry M. Gillespie's
room. I assumed the theory that the phenomena of
that night were symptomatic rather than accidental.
Therefore, I set out to find in what other places the
mysterious H. M. G. had performed."
"How did you know my initials really were H.
M. G.?" asked Mr. Greene.
"The porter at the Denton had seen them on
'Henry M. Gillespie's' suitcase. So I sent out a
loudly printed call to all hotel clerks for information
about a troublesome H. M. G."
He handed the "oh, you hotel men" advertise-
ment to the little group.
"Plenty of replies came. You have, if I may say
it without offense, Mr. Greene, an unfortunate repu-
tation among hotel proprietors. Small wonder that
you use an alias! From the Hotel Carpathia in
Boston I got a response more valuable than I had
dared to hope. An H. M. G. guest—H. Morton
Garson, of Pillston, Pennsylvania (Mr. Greene
nodded)—had wrecked his room and left behind
him this souvenir."


SLUE FIRES 185
Leaning over, Jones pulled, clinking from the
scrap-basket, a fine steel chain. It was endless and
some twelve feet in total length, and had two small
loops, about a foot apart. Mrs. Hale and Kirby
stared at it in speechless surprise.
"Yes, that is mine," said Mr. Greene with com-
posure. "I left it because it had ceased to be service-
able to me."
"Ah! That's very interesting," said Average
Jones with a keen glance. "Of course when I ex-
amined it and found no locks, I guessed that it was
a trick chain, and that there were invisible springs in
the wrist loops."
"But why should any one chain Mr. Greene to his
bed with a trick chain?" questioned Mrs. Hale,
whose mind had been working swiftly.
"He chained himself," explained Jones, "for ex-
cellent reasons. As there is no regular trade in these
things, I figured that he probably bought it from
some juggler whose performance had given him the
idea. So," continued Jones, producing a specimen
of his advertisements in the theatrical publications,
"I set out to find what professional had sold a 'prop'
to an amateur. I found the sale had been made at
Barsfield, Ohio, late in November of last year, by a
'Slippery Sam,' termed 'The Elusive Edwardes.' On
November twenty-eighth of last year Mr. Harvey


186 AVERAGE JONES
M. Greene, of Richmond, Virginia, was registered
at the principal, in fact the only decent hotel, at
Barsfield. I wrote to him and here he is."
"Yes; but where is my necklace?" cried Mrs.
Hale.
"On my word of honor, madam, I know nothing
of your necklace," asserted Greene, with a painful
contraction of his features. "If this gentleman can
throw any more light—"
"I think I can," said Average Jones. "Do you
remember anything of that night's events after you
broke off the bedpost and left your room—the meet-
ing with a guest who questioned you in the hall, for
example?"
"Nothing. Not a thing until I awoke and found
myself on the fire-escape."
"Awoke?" cried Kirby. "Were you asleep all the
time?"
"Certainly. I'm a confirmed sleep-walker of the
worst type. That's why I go under an alias. That's
why I got the trick handcuff chain and chained my-
self up with it, until I found it drove me fighting
crazy in my sleep when I couldn't break away. That's,
why I slept in my dressing-gown that night at the
Denton. There was a red light in the hall outside,
and any light, particularly a colored one, is likely to
set me going. I probably dreamed I was escaping
from a locomotive—that's a common delusion of


BLUE FIRES 187
mine—and sought refuge in the first door that was
open."
"Wait a minute," said Average Jones. "You—er
—say that you are—er—peculiarly susceptible to—
er—colored light."
"Yes."
"Mrs. Hale, was the table on which the necklace
lay in line with any light outside?"
"I think probably with the direct ray of an electric
globe shining through the farther window."
"Then, Mr. Greene," said Average Jones, "the
glint of the fire-blue stones undoubtedly caught your
eye. You seized on the necklace and carried it out
on the fire-escape balcony, where the cool air or the
milk-driver's hail awakened you. Have you no rec-
ollection of seeing such a thing?"
"Not the faintest, unhappily."
"Then he must have dropped it to the ground
below," said Kirby.
"I don't think so," controverted Jones slowly.
"Mr. Greene must have been clinging to it tenacious-
ly when it swung and caught against the railing,
stripping off the three end stones. If the whole
necklace had dropped it would have broken up fine,
and more than three stones would have returned to
us in reply to the advertisements. And in that case,
too, the chances against the end stones alone return-
ing, out of all the thirty-six, are too unlikely to be


BLUE FIRES 189
"Would you—cr—mind—er—leaning over a
bit?" he said.
She bent her dainty head, then gave a startled cry
of delight as the young man, with a swift motion,
looped over her shoulders a chain of living blue fires
which gleamed and glinted in the sunlight.
"They were there all the time," she exclaimed;
"and you knew it."
"Guessed it," he corrected, "by figuring out that
they couldn't well be elsewhere—unless on the unten-
able hypothesis that our friend, Mr. Greene here,
was a thief."
"Which only goes to prove," said Kirby soberly,
"that evidence may be a mighty deceptive accuser."
"Which only goes to prove," amended Average
Jones, "that there's no fire, even the bluest, without
traceable smoke."


CHAPTER VII
PIN-PRICKS
"F I ^HE thing is a fake," declared Bertram. He
1 slumped heavily into a chair, and scowled at
Average Jones' well-littered desk, whereon he had
just tossed a sheet of paper. His usually impeccable
hair was tousled. His trousers evinced a distinct
tendency to bag at the knees, and his coat was un-
deniably wrinkled. That the elegant and flawless
dilettante of the Cosmic Club should have come
forth, at eleven o'clock of a morning, in such a state
of comparative disreputability, argued an upheaval
of mind little short of phenomenal.
"A fake," he reiterated. "I've spent a night of
pseudo-intellectual riot and ruin over it. You've al-
most destroyed a young and innocent mind with
your infernal palimpsest, Average."
"You would have it," returned Average Jones
with a smile. "And I seem to recall a lofty intima-
tion on your part that there never was a cipher so
tough but what you could rope, throw, bind, and tie
a pink ribbon on its tail in record time."
190


192 AVERAGE JONES
DEALERS—You want your customers to have these
12 Shoemaker "Surety Baits" that catch fish.
This case will sell itself empty over and over again,
for every bait is a record-breaker and they catch fish.
We want you to put in one of these cases so that the
anglers will not be disappointed and have to wait for
baits to be ordered. It will be furnished FREE,
charges prepaid, with your order for the dozen baits
it contains.
The peculiar feature of the communication was
that it was profusely be-pimpled with tiny projec-
tions, evidently made by thrusting a pin through,
from the side which bore the illustrations. These
perforations were liberally scattered. Most, though
not all of them, transfixed certain letters. Accepting
this as indicative, Bertram had copied out all the let-
ters thus distinguished, with the following cryptic
result:
b-ntrt n-trak-i (doubtful) « (doubtful! d-oo-uts-eAtf
A e-u-a-l-e-wt-i-h-i-e-l-y-a-n-u-t-t-m-a-n (doubtful g-e-x-c-s
(doubtlul) s-e M-e-p-c (two punctures) l-y-v/~u-s-o-m-e-r-f
Aii / S-ttra-s-rl-e-va-h (twice) W-j-o-m (doubtful)
h-c-s-e-vt-l-tf-r (periorated twice) <ra-o-u-c-e-o-u-c (doubt-
ful) m-t (perforated twice) n-o-h-a-e-f-o^rwo-r-ih-i-r-e-d-
w-l-lb (perforated three times) f-u-h-g-e-p-dh-o-d (doubt-
ful) ft-h-g-b-t-n-l.
"Yes, the copy's all right," growled Bertram.
"Tell me again how you came by it."
"Robinson came here twice and missed me. Yes-
terday I got the note from him which you've seen,
with the enclosure which has so threatened your rea-
son. You know the rest. Perhaps you'd have done
well to study the note for clues to the other docu-
ment."


PIN-PRICKS 193
Something in his friend's tone made Bertram
glance up suspiciously. "Let me see the note," he de-
manded.
Average Jones handed it to him. There was no
stamp on it; it had been left by the writer. It was
addressed, in rather scrawly chirography, to "A.
Jones, Ad-Visor," and read:
The Caronia, Nov. 18.
Mr. A. Jones, Astor Court Temple:
I have tried unsuccessfully to see you twice. En-
closed you will find the reason. Please read through
it carefully. Then I am sure you will see and help
me. Money is no object. I will call to-morrow at
noon. Respectfully,
William H. Robinson.
"Well, I see nothing out of the ordinary in that,"
observed Bertram.
"Nothing?" inquired Average Jones.
Bertram read the message again. "Of course the
man is rattled. That's obvious in his handwriting.
Also, he has inverted one sentence in his haste and
said 'read through it,' instead of 'read it through.'
Otherwise, it's ordinary enough."
"It must be vanity that keeps you from eye-
glasses, Bert," Average Jones observed with a sigh.
"Well, I'm afraid I set you on the wrong track,
myself!"
Bertram lifted an eyebrow with an effort.


194 AVERAGE JONES
"Meaning, I suppose, that you're on the right one
and have solved the cipher."
"Cipher be jiggered. You were right in your
opening remark. There isn't any cipher. If you'd
read Mr. Robinson's note correctly, and if you'd had
the advantage of working on the original of the bait
advertisement as I have, you'd undoubtedly have
noticed at once—"
"Thank you," murmured Bertram.
"—that fully one-third of the pin-pricks don't
touch any letters at all."
"Then we should have taken the letters which lie
between the holes?"
"No. The letters don't count. It's the punctures.
Force your eyes to consider those alone, and you
will see that the holes themselves form letters and
words. Read through it carefully, as Robinson
directed."
He held the paper up to the light . Bertram made
out in straggling characters, formed in skeleton by
the perforations, this legend:
ALL POINTS TO
YOU TAKE THE
SHORT CUT DEATH
IS EASIER THAN
SOME THINGS.
"Whew! That's a cheery little greeting," re-
^


PIN-PRICKS 195
marked Bertram. "But why didn't friend Robinson
point it out definitely in his letter?"
"Wanted to test my capacity perhaps. Or, it may
have been simply that he was too frightened and rat-
tled to know just what he was writing."
"Know anything of him?"
"Only what the directory tells, and directories
don't deal in really intimate details of biography,
you know. There's quite an assortment of William
H. Robinsons, but the one who lives at the Caronia
appears to be a commission merchant on Pearl
Street. As the Caronia is one of the most elegant
and quite the most enormous of those small cities
within themselves which we call apartment houses,
I take it that Mr. Robinson is well-to-do, and prob-
ably married. You can ask him, yourself, if you
like. He's due any moment, now."
Promptly, as befitted a business man, Mr. William
H. Robinson arrived on the stroke of twelve. He
was a well-made, well-dressed citizen of forty-five,
who would have been wholly ordinary save for one
peculiarity. In a room more than temperately cool
he was sweating profusely, and that, despite the
fact that his light overcoat was on his arm. Not
polite perspiration, be it noted, such as would have
been excusable in a gentleman of his pale and sleek
plumpness, but soul-wrung sweat, the globules
whereof gathered in the grayish hollows under his


196 AVERAGE JONES
eyes, and assailed, not without effect, the glistening
expanse of his tall white collar. He darted a
glance at Bertram, then turned to Average Jones.
"I had hoped for a private interview," he said in
a high piping voice.
"Mr. Bertram is my friend and business confi-
dant."
"Very good. You—you have read it?"
"Yes."
"Then—then—then—" The visitor fumbled,
with nerveless fingers, at his tightly buttoned cut-
away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with
a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the
lapel, tearing the button outright from the cloth.
"Look what I have done," he said, staring stupidly
for a moment at the button which had shot across
the room. Then, to the amazed consternation of the
others, he burst into tears.
Average Jones pushed a chair behind him, while
Bertram brought him a glass of water. He gulped
out his thanks, and, mastering himself after a mo-
ment's effort, drew a paper from his inner pocket
which he placed on the desk. It was a certified
check for one hundred dollars, made payable to A.
Jones.
"There's the rest of a thousand ready, if you
can help me," he said.
"We'll talk of that later," said the prospective


PIN-PRICKS 197
beneficiary. "Sit tight until you're able to answer
questions."
"Able now," piped the other in his shrill voice.
"I'm ashamed of myself, gentlemen, but the strain
I've been under— When you've heard my story—"
"Just a moment, please," interrupted Average
Jones, "let me get at this my own way."
"Any way you like," returned the visitor.
"Good! Now what is it that points to you?"
"I don't know any more than you."
"What are the 'some things' that are worse than
death?"
Mr. Robinson shook his head. "I haven't the
slightest notion in the world."
"Nor of the 'short cut' which you are advised to
take?"
"I suppose it means suicide." He paused for a
moment. "They can't drive me to that—unless they
drive me crazy first." He wiped the sweat from un-
der his eyes, breathing hard.
"Who are'they?'"
Mr. Robinson shook his head. In the next ques-
tion the interrogator's tone altered and became more
insistent.
"Have you ever called in a doctor, Mr. Robin-
son?"
"Only once in five years. That was when my
nerves broke down—under this."


198 AVERAGE JONES
"When you do call in a doctor, is it your habit
to conceal your symptoms from him?"
"Of course not. I see what you mean. Mr.
Jones, I give you my word of honor, as I hope to
be saved from this persecution, I don't know any
more than yourself what it means."
"Then—er—I am—er—to believe," replied Jones,
drawling, as he always did when interest, in his
mind, was verging on excitement, "that a simple
blind threat like this—er—without any backing from
your own conscience—er—could shake you—^r—as
this has done? Why, Mr. Robinson, the thing—er
—may be—er—only a raw practical joke."
"But the others!" cried the visitor. His face
changed and fell. "I believe I am going crazy," he
groaned. "I didn't tell you about the others."
Diving into his overcoat pocket he drew out a
packet of letters which he placed on the desk with
a sort of dismal flourish.
"Read those!" he cried.
"Presently." Average Jones ran rapidly over the
eight envelopes. With one exception, each bore the
imprint of some firm name made familiar by ex-
tensive advertising. All the envelopes were of soft-
ish Manila paper varying in grade and hue, under
one-cent stamps.
"Which is the first of the series?" he asked.


PIN-PRICKS 199
"It isn't among those. Unfortunately it was lost,
by a stupid servant's mistake, pin and all."
"Pin?"
"Yes. Where I cut open the envelope—"
"Wait a moment. You say you cut it open. All
these, being one-cent postage, must have come un-
sealed. Was the first different?"
"Yes. It had a two-cent stamp. It was a circular
announcement of the Swift-Reading Encyclopedia,
in a sealed envelope. There was a pin bent over the
fold of the letter so you couldn't help but notice it.
Its head was stuck through the blank part of the
circular. Leading from it were three very small pins
arranged as a pointer to the message."
"Do you remember the message?"
"Could I forget it! It was pricked out quite small
on the blank fold of the paper. It said: 'Make the
most of your freedom. Your time is short. Call
at General Delivery, Main P. O., for your warn-
ing.'"
"You went there?"
"The next day."
"And found—?"
"An ordinary sealed envelope, addressed in pin-
pricks connected by pencil lines. The address was
scrawly, but quite plain."
"Well, what did it contain?"


200 AVERAGE JONES
"A commitment blank to an insane asylum."
Average Jones absently drew out his handker-
chief, elaborately whisked from his coat sleeve an
imaginary speck of dust, and smiled benignantly
where the dust was supposed to have been.
"Insane asylum," he murmured. "Was—er—the
blank—er—filled in?"
"Only partly. My name was pricked in, and there
was a specification of dementia from drug habit,
with suicidal tendencies."
With a quick signal, unseen by the visitor, Aver-
age Jones opened the way to Bertram, who, in a
wide range of experience and study had once spec-
ialized upon abnormal mental phenomena.
"Pardon me," that gentleman put in gently, "has
there ever been any dementia in your family?"
"Not as far as I know."
"Or suicidal mania?"
"All my people have died respectably in their
beds," declared the visitor with some vehemence.
"Once more, if I may venture. Have you ever
been addicted to any drug?"
"Never, sir."
"Now," Average Jones took up the examination,
"will you tell me of any enemy who would have rea-
son to persecute you?"
"I haven't an enemy in the world."
"You're fortunate," returned the other smiling,


202 AVERAGE JONES
he got the first message. People don't always read
advertisements, even when sealed, as the first mes-
sage-bearing one was. Therefore, our mysterious
persecutor says: 'I'll just have Robinson prove it to
me if he did get the first message, by calling for the
second.' Then, after a lapse of time, he himself
goes to the General Delivery, asks for a letter for
Mr. William H. Robinson, finds it's gone, and is
satisfied."
"Yes, and he'd be sure then that Robinson would
go through all the mailed ads with a fine-tooth comb
after that. But why the pin-pricks? Just to dis-
guise his hand?"
"Possibly. It's a fairly effectual disguise."
"Why didn't he address the envelope that way
then?"
"The address wouldn't be legible against the
white background of the paper inside. On the other
hand, if he'd addressed all his envelopes by pin-
pricks filled in with pencil lines, the post-office peo-
ple might get curious and look into one. Sending
threats through the mail is a serious matter."
Average Jones ran over the letter again. "Good
man, Robinson!" he observed. "He's penciled the
date of receipt on each one, like a fine young me-
thodical business gent. Here we are: 'Rec'd July
14. Card from Goshorn & Co., Oriental Goods.'
Message pricked in through the cardboard: 'You are


204 AVERAGE JONES
- "Drug or suicide," remarked Bertram. "The man
at the other end doesn't seem particular which."
"There's the insane asylum always to fall back on.
Under date of October first, comes the Latherton
Soap Company's impassioned appeal to self-shaving
manhood. Great Caesar! No wonder poor Robin-
son was upset. Listen to this: 'God himself hates
you.' After that there's a three-weeks respite, for
there's October twenty-second on this one, Kirkby
and Dunn's offering of five per cent, water bonds.
'The commission has its spies watching you con-
stantly.' Calculated to inspire confidence in the
most timid soul! Now we come to the soup course:
Smith and Perkins' Potted Chowder. Date of No-
vember third. Er—Bert—here's something—er—
really worth while, now. Hark to the song of the
pin.
He read sonorously:
"Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis;
Quae nunc abibis in locaf"
"Hadrian, isn't it?" cried Bertram, in utter
amazement. "Of course it is! Hadrian's terrified
invocation to his own parting spirit. 'Guest and
companion of my body; into what places will you
now go?' Average, it's uncanny! Into what place
of darkness and dread is the Demon of the Pin try-
ing to drive poor Robinson's spirit?"


PIN-PRICKS 205
Average Jones shook his head. "'Pallidula, nu-
dula, rigida,' " he completed the quatrain. "'Ghost-
pale, stark, and rigid.' He's got a grisly imagination,
that pin-operator. I shouldn't care to have him on
my trail."
"But Robinson!" protested Bertram feebly.
"What has a plump, commonplace, twentieth-cen-
tury, cutaway-wearing, flat-inhabiting Robinson to
do with a Roman emperor's soul-questionings?"
"Perhaps the last entry of the lot will tell us.
Palmerton's Magazine's feature announcement, re-
ceived November ninth. No; it doesn't give any
clue to the Latinity. It isn't bad, though. 'The
darkness falls.' That's all there is to it. And
enough."
"I should say the darkness did fall," confirmed
Bertram. "It falls—and remains."
Average Jones pushed the collection of advertise-
ments aside and returned to the opening phase of
the problem, the fish-bait circular which Robinson
had mailed him. So long after, that Bertram hardly
recognized it as a response to his last remark, the in-
vestigator drawled out:
"Not such—er—impenetrable darkness. In fact,
—er—Eureka, or words to that effect. Bert, when
does the bass season end?"
"November first, hereabouts, I believe."
"The postmark on the envelope that carried this


PIN-PRICKS 207
off, exhibited more or less fragmentary signs of a
previous cancellation.
"Careless work," criticized Average Jones. "Ev-
ery bit of the mark should have been removed,
instead of trusting to the second stamp to cover
what little was left, by shifting it a bit toward the
center of the envelope. Look; you can see on this
one where the original stamp was peeled off. On
this the traces of erasure are plain enough. That's
why Manila paper was selected: it's easier to erase
from."
"Is Robinson faking?" asked Bertram. "Or has
some one been rifling his waste-basket?"
"That would mean an accomplice in the house,
which would be dangerous. I think it was done at
longer range. As for the question of our friend's
faking in his claim of complete ignorance of all this,
I propose to find that out right now."
Drawing the telephone to him, he called the Ca-
ronia apartments. Thus it was that Mr. William
H. Robinson, for two unhappy minutes, profoundly
feared that at last he had really lost his mind. This
is the conversation in which he found himself im-
plicated.
"Hello! Mr. Robinson? This is Mr. A. Jones.
You hear me?"
"Yes, Mr. Jones. What is it?"
"Integer vitae, scclerisquc purus."


PIN-PRICKS 209
"Insane? Or semi-insane? It does rather look
like delusional paranoia."
As nearly as imperfect humanity may, Average
Jones appeared to be smiling indulgently at the end
of his own nose.
"Dare say you're right—er—in part, Bert. But
I've also a hunch that our man Robinson is himself
the delusion as well as the object."
"I wish you wouldn't be cryptic, Average," said
his friend pathetically. "There's been enough of
that without your gratuitously adding to the sum
of human bewilderment."
Average Jones scribbled a few words on a pad,
considered, amended, and handed the result over to
Bertram, who read:
"Wanted—Professional envelope eraser to remove
marks from used envelopes. Experience essential.
Apply at once.—A. Jones, Ad-Visor, Astor Court
Temple."
"Would it enlighten your gloom to see that in
every New York and Brooklyn paper to-morrow?"
inquired its inventor.
"Not a glimmer."
"We'll give this ad a week's repetition if neces-
sary, before trying more roundabout measures. As
soon as I have heard from it I'll drop in at the club
and we'll write—that is to say, compose a letter."


210 AVERAGE JONES
"To whom?"
"Oh, that I don't know yet. When I do, you'll
see me."
Three days later Average Jones entered the Cos-
mic Club, with that twinkling up-turn of the mouth
corners which, with him, indicated satisfactory ac-
complishment.
"Really, Bert," he remarked, seeking out his lan-
guid friend, in the laziest corner of the large divan.
"You'd be surprised to know how few experienced
envelope erasers there are in four millions of popula-
tion. Only seven people answered that advertise-
ment, and they were mostly tyros."
"Then you didn't get your man?"
"It was a woman. The fifth applicant . Got a
pin about you?"
Bertram took a pearl from his scarf.
"That's good. It will make nice, bold, inevitable
sort of letters. Come over here to this desk."
For a few moments he worked at a sheet of
paper with the pin, then threw it down in disgust.
"This sort of thing requires practise," he mut-
tered. "Here, Bert, you're cleverer with your fin-
gers than I. You take it, and I'll dictate."
Between them, after several failures, they pro-
duced a fair copy of the following:
"Mr. Alden Honeywell will choose between mak-


PIN-PRICKS 211
ing explanation to the post-office authorities or call-
ing at 3130 p. m. to-morrow on A. Jones, Ad-Visor,
Astor Court Temple."
This Average Jones enclosed in an envelope which
he addressed in writing to Alden Honeywell, Esq.,
550 West Seventy-fourth Street, City, afterward
pin-pricking the letters in outline. "Just f°r moral
effect," he explained. "In part this ought to give
him a taste of the trouble he made for poor Robin-
son. You'll be there to-morrow, Bert?"
"Watch me!" replied that gentleman with un-
wonted emphasis. "But will Alden Honeywell,
Esquire?"
"Surely. Also Mr. William H. Robinson, of the
Caronia. Note that 'of the Caronia.' It's signifi-
cant."
At three-thirty the following afternoon three men
were waiting in Average Jones' inner office. Aver-
age Jones sat at his desk sedulously polishing his
left-hand fore-knuckle with the tennis callous of his
right palm. Bertram lounged gracefully in the big
chair. Mr. Robinson fidgeted. There was an atmos-
phere of tension in the room. At three-forty there
came a tap-tapping across the floor of the outer
room, and a knock at the door brought them all to
their feet. Average Jones threw the door open,
took the man who stood outside by the arm, and
pushing a chair toward him, seated him in it.


212 AVERAGE JONES
The new-comer was an elderly man dressed with
sober elegance. In his scarf was a scarab of great
value; on his left hand a superb signet ring. He
carried a heavy, gold-mounted stick. His face was
curiously divided against itself. The fine calm fore-
head and the deep setting of the widely separated
eyes gave an impression of intellectual power and
balance. But the lower part of the face was mere
wreckage; the chin quivering and fallen, from sel f-
indulgence, the fine lines of the nose coarsened by
the spreading nostrils; the mouth showing both the
soft contours of sensuality and the hard, fine lines
of craft and cruelty. The man's eyes were unholy.
They stared straight before him, and were dead.
With his entrance there was infused in the atmos-
phere a sense of something venomous.
"Mr. Alden Honeywell?" said Average Jones.
"Yes." The voice had refinement and calm.
"I want to introduce you to Mr. William H. Rob-
inson."
The new-comer's head turned slowly to his right
shoulder then back. His eyes remained rigid.
"Why, the man's blind!" burst out Mr. Robinson
in his piping voice.
"Blind!" echoed Bertram. "Did you know this.
Average?"
"Of course. The pin-pricks showed it. And the
letter mailed to Mr. Robinson at the General De-


PIN-PRICKS 213
livery, which, if you remember, had the address
penciled in from pin-holes."
"When you have quite done discussing my per-
sonal misfortune," said Honeywell patiently, "per-
haps you will be good enough to tell me which is
William Robinson."
"I am," returned the owner of that name. "And
do you be good enough to tell me why you hound
me with your hellish threats."
"That is not William Robinson's voice!" said the
blind man. "Who are you?"
"William H. Robinson."
"Not William Honeywell Robinson!"
"No; William Hunter Robinson."
"Then why am I brought here?"
"To make a statement for publication in to-mor-
row morning's newspaper," returned Average
Jones crisply.
"Statement? Is this a yellow journal trap?"
"As a courtesy to Mr. Robinson, I'll explain.
How long have you lived in the Caronia, Mr. Rob-
mson?
"About eight months."
"Then, some three or four months before you
moved in, another William H. Robinson lived there
for a short time. His middle name was Honeywell.
He is a cousin, and an object of great solicitude to
this gentleman here. In fact, he is, or will be, the


214 AVERAGE JONES
chief witness against Mr. Honeywell in his effort
to break the famous Holden Honeywell will, dis-
posing of some ten million dollars. Am I right,
Mr. Honeywell?"
"Thus far," replied the blind man composedly.
"Five years ago William Honeywell Robinson
became addicted to a patent headache 'dope.' It
ended, as such habits do, in insanity. He was con-
fined two years, suffering from psychasthenia, with
suicidal melancholia and delusion of persecution.
Then he was released, cured, but with a supersensi-
tive mental balance."
"Then the messages were intended to drive him
out of his mind again," said Bertram in sudden en-
lightenment. "What a devil!"
"Either that, or to impel him, by suggestion, to
suicide or to revert to the headache powders, which
would have meant the asylum again. Anything to
put him out of the way, or to make his testimony
incompetent for the will contest. So, when the ex-
lunatic returned from Europe a year ago, our friend
Honeywell here, in some way located him at the
Caronia. He matured his little scheme. Through
a letter broker who deals with the rag and refuse
collectors, he got all the second-hand mail from the
Caronia. Meantime, William Honeywell Robinson
had moved away, and as chance would have it, Wil-


PIN-PRICKS 215
Ham Hunter Robinson moved in, receiving the pin-
prick letters which, had they reached their goal,
would probably have produced the desired effect."
"If they drove a sane man nearly crazy, what
(wouldn't they have done to one whose mind wasn't
quite right!" cried the wronged Robinson.
"But since Mr. Honeywell is blind," said Ber-
tram, "how could he see to erase the cancellations?"
"Ah! That's what I asked myself. Obviously,
he couldn't. He'd have to get that done for him.
Presumably he'd get some stranger to do it. That's
why I advertised for a professional eraser who was
experienced, judging that it would fetch the person
who had done Honeywell's work."
"Is there any such thing as a professional en-
velope eraser?" asked Bertram.
"No. So a person of experience in this line
would be almost unique. I was sure to find the
right one, if he or she saw my advertisement. As
a matter of fact, it turned out to be an unimagina-
tive young woman who has told me all about her
former employment with Mr. Honeywell, appar-
ently with no thought that there was anything
strange in erasing cancellations from hundreds of
envelopes—for Honeywell was cautious enough not
to confine her to the Robinson mail alone—and then
pasting on stamps to remail them."


216 AVERAGE JONES
"You appear to have followed out my moves
with some degree of acumen, Mr.—er—Jones,"
said the blind schemer suavely.
"Yet I might not have solved your processes so
easily if you had not made one rather—if you will
pardon me—stupid mistake."
For the first time, the man's bloated lips shook.
His evil pride of intellectuality was stung.
"You lie!" he said hastily. "I do not make mis-
takes."
"No? Well, have it as you will. The point is
that you are to sign here a statement, which I shall
read to you before these witnesses, announcing for
publication the withdrawal of your contest for the
Honeywell millions."
"And if I decline?"
"The painful necessity will be mine of turning
over these instructive documents to the United
States postal authorities. But not before giving
them to the newspapers. How would you look in
court, in view of this attempt to murder a fellow-
man's reason?"
Mr. Honeywell had now gained his composure.
"You are right," he assented. "You seem to have
a singular faculty for being right. Be careful it
does not fail you—sometime."
"Thank you," returned Average Jones. "Now
you will listen, please, all of you."


PIN-PRICKS 217
He read the brief document, placed it before the
blind man, and set a pin between his finger and
thumb. "Sign there," he said.
Honeywell smiled as he pricked in his name.
"For identification, I suppose," he said. "Am I
to assign no cause to the newspapers for my sud-
den action?"
A twinkle of malice appeared in Average Jones'
eye.
"I would suggest waning mental acumen," he
said.
The blind man winced palpably as he rose to his
feet. "That is the second time you have taunted
me on that. Kindly tell me my mistake."
Average Jones led him to the door and opened it.
"Your mistake," he drawled as he sped his part-
ing guest into the grasp of a waiting attendant,
"was—er—in not remembering that—er—you
mustn't fish for bass in November."


CHAPTER VIII
BIG PRINT ,
IN the Cosmic Club Mr. Algernon Spofford was
a figure of distinction. Amidst the varied, curi-
ous, eccentric, brilliant, and even slightly unbal-
anced minds which made the organization unique,
his was the only wholly stolid and stupid one.
Club tradition declared that he had been admitted
solely for the beneficent purpose of keeping the
more egotistic members in a permanent and pleas-
ing glow of superiority. He was very rich, but
otherwise quite harmless. In an access of unappre-
ciated cynicism, Average Jones had once suggested
to him, as a device for his newly acquired coat-of-
arms, "Rocks et Praeterea Nihil."
But the "praeterea nihil" was something less than
fair to Mr. Spofford, with whom it was not strictly
a case of "nothing further" besides his "rocks."
Ambition, the vice of great souls, burned in Mr.
Spofford's pigeon-breast. He longed to distinguish
himself in the line of endeavor of his friend Jones,
and was prone to proffer suggestions, hints, and
even advice, to the great tribulation of the recipient.
218


BIG PRINT 219
Hence it was with misgiving that the Ad-Visor
opened the door of his sanctum to Mr. Spofford, on
a harsh December noon. But the misgivings were
supplanted by pleased surprise when the caller laid
in his hand a clipping from a small country town
paper, to this effect:
Ransom—Lost lad from Harwick not drowned
nor harmed. Retained for ransom. Safe and
sound to parents for $50,000. Write, Mortimer
Morley, General Delivery, N. Y. Post-Office.
"Thought that'd catch you," chuckled Mr. Spof-
ford, in great self-congratulation. "'Jones'll see
into this,' I says to myself. 'If he don't, I'll ex-
plain.' Somethin' to that, ay?"
Average Jones looked from the advertisement to
the vacuous smile of Mr. Algernon Spofford. "Oh,
you'll explain, will you?" he said softly. "Well, the
thing I'd like to have explained is—come over here
to the window a minute, will you, Algy?"
Mr. Spofford came, and gazed down upon a
dispiriting area of rain-swept street and bedraggled
wayfarers.
"See that ten-story office building across the
way?" pursued Average Jones. "What would you
do if, coming in here at midnight, you were to see
twenty-odd rats ooze out of that building and dis-
perse about their business?"


BIG PRINT 221
"Suspect what?" growled Spofford.
"That there must be some abnormal cause for so
abnormal a proceeding. Think, now, Algy."
"I've heard of rats leavin' a sinkin' ship. The
building might have been sinkin'," suggested the
visitor hopefully.
"Is that the best you can do? I'll give you one
more try."
"I know," said Spofford. "A cat."
"On my soul," declared Average Jones, gazing at
his club-mate with increased interest, "you're the
most remarkable specimen of inverted mentality
I've ever encountered. D'you think a cat habitually
rounds up two dozen rats and then chivies 'em out
into the street for sport? McCue didn't have any cat
theory. He figured that when rats come out of a
place that way the place is afire. So he turned in an
alarm and saved a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollar building."
"Umph!" grunted Spofford. "Well, what's that
got to do with the advertisement I brought you?"
"Nothing in the world, directly. I'm merely try-
ing to figure out, in my own way, how a mind like
yours could see under the surface print into the
really interesting peculiarity of this clipping. Now
I know that your mind didn't do anything of the
sort. Come on, now, Algy, who sent this to you?"
"Cousin of mine up in Harwick. I wish you


BIG PRINT 223
Reverend Peter Prentice, going up to call his son,
found the boy's room empty and the bed untouched,
the second sensation of the day was launched.
Bailey Prentice had, quite simply, vanished.
Some one offered the theory that, playing truant
from the house while his father was engaged in
work below stairs, he had been overwhelmed and
perhaps wholly consumed by a detached fragment
from the fiery visitant. This picturesque suggestion
found many supporters until, on the afternoon of
December fourteenth, a coat and waistcoat were
found on the seashore a mile north of the village.
The Reverend Mr. Prentice identified the clothes as
his son's. Searching parties covered the beach for
miles, looking for the body. Preparations were
made for the funeral services, when a new and as-
tonishing factor was injected into the situation. An
advertisement, received by mail from New York,
with stamps affixed to the "copy" to pay for its in-
sertion, appeared in the local paper.
"And here's the advertisement," concluded Mr.
Algernon Spofford, indicating the slip of paper
which he had turned over to Average Jones. "And
if you are going up to Harwick and need help there,
vhy I've got time to spare."
"Thank you, Algy," replied Average Jones
gravely. "But I think you'd better stay here in case


BIG PRINT 225
advertisement counts for nothing. Professional
kidnappers do not select the sons of impecunious
ministers for their prey. Nor do they give addresses
through which they may be found. You can dismiss
the advertisement as a blind; the second blind, in
fact."
"The second?"
"Certainly. The first was the clothing on the
shore. It was put there to create the impression that
your son was drowned."
"Yes; we all supposed that he must be."
"By what possible hypothesis a boy should be
supposed to take off coat and waistcoat and wade
off-shore into a winter sea is beyond my poor pow-
ers of conjecture," said the other. "No. Somebody
'planted' the clothes there."
"It seems far-fetched to me," said the Reverend
Mr. Prentice doubtfully. "Who would have any
motive for doing such a thing?"
"That is what we have to find out. What time did
your son go to his room the night of his disappear-
ance?"
"Earlier than usual, as I remember. A little before
nine o'clock."
"Any special reason for his going up earlier?"
"He wanted to experiment with a new fishing
outfit just given him for his birthday."
"I see. Will you take me to his room?"


226 AVERAGE JONES
They mounted to the boy's quarters, which over-
looked the roof of the side porch from a window
facing north. The charred ruins of a barn about
half a mile away were plainly visible through this
window.
"The barn which the meteor destroyed," said the
Reverend Mr. Prentice, pointing it out.
One glance was all that Average Jones bestowed
upon a spot which, for a few days, had been of na-
tional interest. His concern was inside the room.
A stand against the wall was littered with bits of
shining mechanism. An unjointed fishing-rod lay
on the bed. Near at hand were a small screw-driver
and a knife with a broken blade.
"Were things in this condition when you came
to call Bailey in the morning and found him gone?"
asked Average Jones.
"Nothing has been touched," said the clergyman
in a low voice.
Average Jones straightened up and stretched him-
self languidly. His voice when he spoke again took
on the slow drawl of boredom. One might have
thought that he had lost all interest in the case—
but for the thoughtful pucker of the broad forehead
which belied his halting accents.
"Then—er—when Bailey left here he hadn't any
idea—of—er—running away."


228 AVERAGE JONES
footprints where he landed are deeply marked.
Therefore the soil must have been pretty soft at
the time."
"Very," agreed the clergyman. "There had been
a three-day downpour, up to the evening of Bailey's
disappearance. About nine o'clock the wind shifted
to the northeast, and everything froze hard. There
has been no thaw since."
"You seem very clear on these points, Mr. Pren-
tice."
"I noted them specially, having in mind to write
a paper on the meteorite for the Congregationalist."
"Ah! Perhaps you could tell me, then, how soon
after the meteor's fall, the barn yonder was discov-
ered to be afire."
"Almost instantly. It was in full blaze within a
very short time after."
"How short? Five minutes or so?"
"Not so much. Certainly not more than two."
"H'm! Peculiar! Ra—a—a—ather peculiar,"
drawled Average Jones. "Particularly in view of the
weather."
"In what respect?"
"In respect to a barn, water-soaked by a three-day
rain bursting into flame like tinder."
"It had not occurred to me. But the friction and
heat of the meteorite must have been extremely
great."


BIG PRINT 229
"And extremely momentary except as to the lower
floor, and the fire should have taken some time to
spread, from that. However, to turn to other mat-
ters—" He swung himself over the edge of the roof
and went briskly down the lightning rod. Across
the frozen ground he moved, with his eyes on the
soil, and presently called up to his host:
"At any rate, he started across lots in the direc-
tion of the barn. Will you come down and let me
in?"
Back in the study, Average Jones sat meditating
a few moments. Presently he asked:
"Did you go to the spot where your son's clothes
were found?"
"Yes. Some time after."
"Where was it?"
"On the seashore, some half a mile to the east of
the Tuxall place, and a little beyond."
"Is there a roadway from the Tuxall place to the
spot?;'
"No; I believe not. But one could go across the
fields and through the barn to the old deserted road-
way."
"Ah. There's an old roadway, is there?"
"Yes. It skirts the shore to join Boston Pike
about three miles up."
"And how far from this roadway were your son's
clothes found?"


230 AVERAGE JONES
"Just a few feet."
"H'm. Any tracks in the roadway?"
"Yes. I recall seeing some buggy tracks and be-
ing surprised, because no one ever drives that way."
"Then it is conceivable that your son's clothes
might have been tossed from a passing vehicle, to the
spot where they were discovered."
"Conceivable, certainly. But I can see no ground
for such a conjecture."
"How far down the road, in this direction, did the
tracks run?"
"Not beyond the fence-bar opening from the
Tuxall field, if that is what you mean."
"It is, exactly. Do you know this Tuxall?"
"Hardly at all. He is a recent comer among us."
"Well, I shall probably want to make his acquaint-
ance, later."
"Have a care, then. He is very jealous of his
precious meteor, and guards the ruins of the barn,
where it lies, with a shot gun."
"Indeed? He promises to be an interesting study.
Meantime, I'd like to look at your son's clothes."
From a closet Mr. Prentice brought out a coar
and waistcoat of the "pepper-and-salt" pattern which
is sold by the hundreds of thousands the whole coun-
try over. These the visitor examined carefully. The
coat was caked with mud, particularly thick on one
shoulder. He called the minister's attention to it.



■
Srz^f.

^ojv+M+ust. Tvw^v^te^.
3$*.

"A paper with some gibberish on it"





BIG PRINT 231
"That would be from lying wet on the shore," said
the Reverend Mr. Prentice.
"Not at all. This is mud, not sand. And it's
ground or pressed in. Has any one tampered with
these since they were found?"
"I went through the pockets."
Average Jones frowned. "Find anything?"
"Nothing of importance. A handkerchief, some
odds and ends of string—oh, and a paper with some
gibberish on it."
"What was the nature of this gibberish?"
"Why it might have been some sort of boyish
secret code, though it was hardly decipherable
enough to judge from. I remember some flamboy-
ant adjectives referring to something three feet high.
I threw the paper into the waste-basket."
Turning that receptacle out on the table, Average
Jones discovered in the debris a sheet of cheap, ruled
paper, covered with penciled words in print char-
acters. Most of these had been crossed out in favor
of other words or sentences, which in turn had been
"scratched." Evidently the writer had been toil fully
experimenting toward some elegance or emphasis of
expression, which persistently eluded him. Amidst
the wreck and ruin of rhetoric, however, one phrase
stood out clear:
"Stupendous scientific sensation."
Below this was a huddle and smudge of words,


BIG PRINT 233
thrust his arm into the coat which went with it, and
wormed his way, effort fully, partly into that. He
laid it aside only when he had determined that he
could get it no farther on. He was clothed and in
his right garments when the Reverend Mr. Prentice
returned with a much-worn pair of shoes.
"Will these do?" he asked.
Average Jones hardly gave them the courtesy of
a glance. "Yes," he said indifferently, and set them
aside. "Have you a time-tahle here?"
"You're going to leave?" cried the clergyman, in
sharp disappointment.
"In just half an hour," replied the visitor, holding
his finger on the time-table.
"But," cried Mr. Prentice, "that is the train back
to New York."
"Exactly."
"And you're not going to see Tuxall?"
"No."
"Nor to examine the place where the clothes were
found?"
"Haven't time."
"Mr. Jones, are you giving up the attempt to dis-
cover what became of my boy?"
"I know what became of him."
The minister put out a hand and grasped the back
of a chair for support. His lips parted. No sound


234 AVERAGE JONES
came from them. Average Jones carefully folded
the paper of "gibberish" and tucked it away in his
card case.
"Bailey has been carried away by two people in a
buggy. They were strangers to the town. He was
injured and unconscious. They still have him. In-
cidentally, he has seriously interfered with a daring
and highly ingenious enterprise. That is all I can
tell you at present."
The clergyman found his voice. "In the name of
heaven, Mr. Jones," he cried, "tell me who and
what these people are."
"I don't know who they are. I do know what
they are. But it can do no good to tell you the one
until I can find out the other. Be sure of one thing.
Bailey is in no further danger. You'll hear from
me as soon as I have anything definite to report."
With that, the Reverend Mr. Prentice had to be
content; that and a few days later, a sheet of letter
paper bearing the business imprint of the Ad-Visor,
and enclosing this advertisement:
WANTED—3 Ft. type for sensational Bill Work.
Show samples. Delivery in two weeks. A. Jones,
Ad-Visor, Astor Court Temple, N. Y. City.
Had the Reverend Mr. Prentice been a reader of
journals devoted to the art and practice of printing,
he might have observed that message widely scat-


BIG PRINT 235
tered to the trade. It was answered by a number of
printing shops. But, as the answers came in to Av-
erage Jones, he put them aside, because none of the
seekers for business was able to "show samples."
Finally there came a letter from Hoke and Hollins
of Rose Street. They would like Mr. Jones to call
and inspect some special type upon which they were
then at work. Mr. Jones called. The junior mem-
ber received him.
"Quite providential, Mr. Jones," he said. "We're
turning out some single-letter, hand-made type of
just the size you want. Only part of the alphabet,
however. Isn't that a fine piece of lettering!"
He held up an enormous M to the admiration of
his visitor.
"Excellent!" approved Average Jones. "I'd like
to see other letters; A, for example."
Mr. Hollins produced a symmetrical A.
"And now, an R, if you please; and perhaps a V."
Mr. Hollis looked at his visitor with suspicion.
"You appear to be selecting the very letters which I
have," he remarked.
"Those which—er—would make up the—er—le-
gend, 'Marvelous Man-Like Monster," drawled
Average Jones.
"Then you know the Farleys," said the print man.
"The Flying Farleys?" said Average Jones.
"They used to do ascensions with firework trim-


236 AVERAGE JONES
mings, didn't they? No; I don't exactly know them.
But I'd like to."
"That's another matter," retorted Mr. Hollins, an-
noyed at having betrayed himself. "This type is de-
cidedly a private—even a secret—order. I had no
right to say anything about it or the customers who
ordered it."
"Still, you could see that a letter left here for
them reached them, I suppose."
After some hesitation, the other agreed. Average
Jones sat down to the composition of an epistle
which should be sufficiently imperative without be-
ing too alarming. Having completed this delicate
task to his satisfaction he handed the result to Mr.
Hollins.
"If you haven't already struck off a proof of that
line, you might do so," he suggested. "I've asked
the Farleys for a print of it; and I fancy they'll
be sending for one."
Leaving the shop he went direct to a telegraph
office, whence he despatched two messages to Har-
wick. One was to the Reverend Peter Prentice.
The other was to the local chief of police.
1 On the following afternoon Mr. Prentice stood
trembling in the anteroom of the Ad-Visor's suite.
With the briefest word of greeting Average Jones
led him into his private office, where a white-faced,
clear-eyed boy, with his head swathed in bandages,


238 AVERAGE JONES
wouldn't tell me how I got hurt or where I was when
I woke up."
"Naturally. Well, we must piece it out among
us. Now, Bailey, you were working over your reel
the night the meteor fell, when—"
"What meteor? I don't know anything about a
meteor."
"Of course you don't," said Average Jones laugh-
ing. "Stupid of me. For the moment I had forgot-
ten that you were out of the world then. Well, about
nine o'clock of the night you got the reel, you looked
out of your window and saw a queer light over at
the Tuxall place."
"That's right. But say, Mr. Jones, how do you
know about the light?"
"What else but a light could you have seen, on a
pitch-black night?" counter-questioned Average
Jones with a smile. "And it must have been some-
thing unusual, or you wouldn't have dropped every-
thing to go to it."
"That's what!" corroborated the boy. "A kind of
flame shot up from the ground. Then it spread a
little. Then it went out. And there were people run-
ning around it."
"Ah! Some one must have got careless with the
oil," observed Average Jones.
"That fool Tuxall!" broke in Farley with an oath.
"It was him gummed the whole game."


BIG PRINT 241
"But what in the world was their plan?" de-
manded the minister.
"That comes later. They took off Bailey's coat
and waistcoat, perhaps to see if his back was broken
(Farley nodded), and finding him alive, tossed his
clothes into the buggy, where Farley had left his
own, arid completed their necessary work. Of
course, there was danger that Bailey might come to
at any moment and ruin everything. So they
worked at top speed, and left the final performance
to Tuxall. In their excitement they forgot to find
out from their accomplice who Bailey was. Conse-
quently, they found themselves presently driving
across country with an unknown and undesired
white elephant of a boy on their hands. One of
them conceived the idea of tossing his clothes upon
the sea-beach to establish a false clue of drowning,
until they could decide what was to be done with
him. In carrying this out they made the mistake
which lighted up the whole trail."
"Well, I don't see it at all," said Farley glumly.
"How did you ever get to us?"
Average Jones mildly contemplated the mathe-
matical center of his questioner.
"New waistcoat?" he asked.
Farley glanced down at the outrageous pattern
with pride.


2+2 AVERAGE JONES
"Yep. Got it last week."
"Lost the one that came with the pepper-and-
salt suit you're wearing?"
"Damn!" exploded Farley in sudden enlighten-
l.ient.
"Just so. Your waistcoat got mixed with the
boy's clothes, which are of the same common pat-
tern, and was tossed out on the beach with his
coat."
"Well, I didn't leave a card in it, did I?" re-
torted the other.
"Something just as good."
"The ad, Tim!" cried the woman. "Don't you re-
member, you couldn't find the rough draft you
made while we were waiting?"
"That's right, too," he said. "It was in that vest-
pocket. But it didn't have no name on it."
"Then, that," put in the Reverend Peter Prentice,
"was the scrawled nonsense—"
"Which you—er—threw into the waste-basket."
drawled Average Jones with a smile.
"Those were not Bailey's clothes at all?"
"The coat was his; not the waistcoat. His waist-
coat may have fallen out of the buggy, or it may be
there yet."
"But what does all this talk of people at work in
the dark, and arson, and a mysterious creature tied
in a tree lead to?"


BIG PRINT 243
"It leads," said Average Jones, "to a very large
rock, much scorched, and with a peculiar carving
on it, which now lies imbedded in the earth beneath
Tuxall's barn."
"If you've seen that," said Farley, "it's all up."
"I haven't seen it. I've inferred it . But it's all
up, nevertheless."
"Serves us right," said the woman disgustedly.
"I wish we'd never heard of Tuxall and his line of
bunk."
"Mystification upon mystification!" cried the
clergyman. "Will some one please give a clue to
the maze?"
"In a word," said Average Jones. "The Har-
wick meteor."
"What connection—"
"Pardon me, one moment. The 'live thing' in
the tree was a captive balloon. The box on the
ground was a battery. The wire from the battery
was connected with a firework bomb, which, when
Tuxall pressed the switch, exploded, releasing a
flaming 'dropper.' About the time the 'dropper'
reached the earth Tuxall lighted up his well-oiled
barn. All Harwick, having had its attention at-
tracted by the explosion, and seen the portent with
its own eyes, believed that a huge meteor had fired
the building. So Tuxall and Company had a well-
attested wonder from the heavens. That's the little


244 AVERAGE JONES
plan which Bailey's presence threatened to wreck.
Is it your opinion that the stars are inhabited, Mr.
Prentice?"
"What!" cried the minister, gaping.
"Stars—inhabited—living, sentient creatures."
"How should I know!"
"You'd be interested to know, though, wouldn't
you?"
"Why, certainly. Any one would."
"Exactly the point. Any one would, and almost
any one would pay money to see, with his own eyes,
the attested evidence of human, or approximately
human, life in other spheres. It was a big stake
that Tuxall, Farley and Company were playing for.
Do you begin to see the meaning of the big print
now?"
"I've heard nothing about big prints," said the
puzzled clergyman.
"Pardon me, you've heard but you haven't under-
stood. However, to go on, Tuxall and our friends
here fixed up a plan on the prospects of a rich har-
vest from public curiosity and credulity. Tuxall
planted a big rock under the barn, fixed it up appro-
priately with torch and chisel and sent for the Far-
leys, who are expert firework and balloon people, to
counterfeit a meteor."
"Amazing!" cried the clergyman.
"Such a meteor, furthermore, as had never been


246 AVERAGE JONES
committed to and indubitably hall-marked by allit-
eration, the circus trade. You'll recall that Farley
insensibly fell into the habit even in his advertise-
ment; 'lost lad,' 'retained for ransom' and 'Mortimer
Morley.' Therefore I had the combination of a
circus poster, an alleged meteor which burned down
a barn in a highly suspicious manner, and an appar-
ently purposeless kidnapping. The inference was
as simple as it was certain. The two strangers,
with Tuxall's aid, had prepared the fake meteor
with a view to exploiting the star-man. Bailey had
literally tumbled into the plot. They didn't know
how much he had seen. The whole affair hinged on
his being kept quiet. So they took him along. All
that I had to do, then, was to find the deviser of the
three-foot poster. He was sure to be Bailey's ab-
ductor."
"Say," said Farley with conviction, "I believe
you're the devil's first cousin."
"When you left me in Harwick," said the Rev-
erend Peter Prentice, before Average Jones could
acknowledge this flattering surmise, "you said that
strangers had done the kidnapping. How could
you tell they were strangers then?"
"From the fact that they didn't know who
Bailey was, and had to advertise him, indefinitely,
as 'lost lad from Harwick.'"


BIG PRINT 247
"And that there were two of them?" pursued the
minister.
"I surmised two minds: one that schemed out the
'planting' of the clothes on the shore; the other,
more compassionate, that promulgated the adver-
tisement."
"Finally, then, how could you know that Bailey
was injured and unconscious?"
"If he hadn't been unconscious then and for long
after, he'd have revealed his identity to his captors,
wouldn't he?" explained the Ad-Visor.
There was a long pause. Then the woman said
timidly:
"Well, and now what?"
"Nothing," answered Average Jones. "Tuxall
has got away. Mr. Prentice has recovered his son.
You and Farley have had your lesson. And I—"
"Yes, and you, Mr. Detective-man," said the
woman, as he paused. "What do you get out of it?"
Average Jones cast an affectionate glance at the
sprawling legend which disfigured his floor.
"A unique curio in my own special line," he re-
plied. "An ad which never has been published and
never will be. That's enough for me."
There was a double knock at the door, and Mr.
Algernon Spofford burst in, wearing a face of
gloom.


248 AVERAGE JONES
"Say, Average," he began, but broke off with a
snort of amazement. "You've found him!" he
cried. "Hello, Mr. Prentice. Well, Bailey, alive
and kicking, eh?" ,
"Yes; I've found him and them," replied Aver-
age Jones.
"You've done better than me, then. I've gone
through the post-office department from the infor-
mation window here to the postmaster-general in
Washington, and nobody'll help me find Mortimer
Morley."
"Then let me introduce him; Algy, this is Mr.
Mortimer Morley; in less private life Mr. Tim Far-
ley, and his wife, Mrs. Farley, Mr. Spofford."
"Well, I'll be Billy-be-dashed," exploded Mr.
Spofford. "How did you work it out, Average?"
"On the previously enunciated principle," re-
turned Average Jones with a smile, "that when rats
leave a sinking ship or a burning building there's
usually something behind, worth investigating."


CHAPTER IX
THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN
MEMENTOES of Average Jones' exploits in
his chosen field hang on the walls of his
quiet sanctum. Here the favored visitor may see
the two red-ink dots on a dated sheet of paper,
framed in with the card of a chemist and an ad-
vertised sale of lepidopterse, which drove a famous
millionaire out of the country. Near by are dis-
played the exploitation of a lure for black-bass,
strangely perforated (a man's reason hung on those
pin-pricks), and a scrawled legend which seems to
spell "Mercy" (two men's lives were sacrificed to
that) ; while below them, set in somber black, is the
funeral notice of a dog worth a million dollars; fac-
ing the call for a trombone-player which made a
mayor, and the mathematical formula which saved
a governor. But nowhere does the observer find
any record of one of the Ad-Visor's most curious
cases, running back two thousand years; for its
owner keeps it in his desk drawer, whence the pres-
ent chronicler exhumed it, by accident, one day.
Average Jones has always insisted that he scored a
failure on this, because, through no possible fault
249


250 AVERAGE JONES
of his own, he was unable to restore a document of
the highest historical and literary importance. Of
that, let the impartial reader judge.
It was while Average Jones was awaiting the
break of that deadlock of events which, starting
from the flat-dweller with the poisoned face, finally
worked out the strange fate of Telfik Bey, that he
sat, one morning, breakfasting late. The cool and
breezy inner portico of the Cosmic Club, where the
small tables overlook a gracious fountain shimmer-
ing with the dart and poise of goldfish, was de-
serted save for himself, a summer-engagement star
actor, a specialist in carbo-hydrates, and a famous
adjuster of labor troubles; the four men being
fairly typical of the club's catholicity of member-
ship. Contrary to his impeccant habit, Average
Jones bore the somewhat frazzled aspect of a man
who has been up all night. Further indication of
this inhered in the wide yawn, of which he was in
mid-enjoyment, when a hand on his shoulder cut
short his ecstasy.
"Sorry to interrupt so valuable an exercise," said
a languid voice. "But—" and the voice stopped.
"Hello, Bert," returned the Ad-Visor, looking up
at the faultlessly clad slenderness of his occasional
coadjutor, Robert Bertram. "Sit down and keep
me awake till the human snail who's hypothetically
ministering to my wants can get me some coffee."


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 251
"What particular phase of intellectual debauchery
have you been up to now?" inquired Bertram,
lounging into the chair opposite.
"Trying to forget my troubles by chasing up a
promising lead which failed to pan out. 'Wanted:
a Tin Nose,' sounds pretty good, eh?"
"It is music to my untutored ear," answered Ber-
tram.
"But it turned out to be merely the error of the
imbecile, or perhaps facetious printer, who sets up
the Trumpeter's personal column. It should have
read, 'Wanted—a Tea Rose.'"
"Even that seems far from commonplace."
"Only a code summons for a meeting of the
Rosicrucians. I suppose you know that the order
has been revived here in America."
"Not the true Rosicrucians, surely!" said Ber-
tram,
"They pretend to be. A stupid lot, who make
child's play of it," said Average Jones impatiently.
"Never mind them. I'd rather know what's on
your mind. You made an observation, when you
came in, rather more interesting than your usual
output of table-talk. You said 'but' and nothing
further. The conjunction 'but,' in polite grammar,
ordinarily has a comet-like tail to it."
"Apropos of polite grammar, do you speak
Latin?" asked Bertram carelessly.


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 253
tnuniendi, sum peritus. Hac de re pro me spondebit
M. Agrippa. Latine tantum scio. Siquis me velit
convenire, qitovis die mane adesto in publicis hortis
urbis Baitimoriance ad signum apri.
"Can you make it out?" asked Bertram. <■
"Hm-m-m. Well—the general sense. Livius
seems to yearn in modern print for any honest em-
ployment, but especially scrapping of the ancient
variety or secretarying. Apply to Agrippa for ref-
erences. Since he describes his conversation as be-
ing confined to Latin, I take it he won't find many
jobs reaching out eagerly for him. Anybody who
wants him can find him in the Park of the Wild
Boar in Baltimore. That's about what I make of it.
Now, what's his little lay, I wonder."
"Some lay of Ancient Rome, anyhow," suggested
Bertram. "Association with Agrippa would put
him back in the first century, B. G, wouldn't it?
Besides, my informant tells me that Mr. Livius,
who seems to have been an all-around sort of per-
son, helped organize fire brigades for Crassus, and
was one of the circle of minor poets who wrote
rhapsodies to the fair but frail Clodia's eyebrows,
ear-lobes and insteps."
"Your informant? The man's actually been seen,
then?"
"Oh, yes. He's on view as per advertisement, I
understand."


254 AVERAGE JONES
Average Jones rose and stretched his well-knit
frame. "Baltimore will be hotter than the Place-
as-Isn't," he said plaintively. "Martyrdom by fire!
However, I'm off by the five-o'clock train. I'll let
you know if anything special comes of it, Bert."
Barye's splendid bronze boar couches, semi-
shaded, in the center of Monument Park, Balti-
more's social hill-top. There Average Jones
lounged and strolled through the longest hour of a
glaring July morning. People came and went; peo-
ple of all degrees and descriptions, none of whom
suggested in any particular the first century, B. C.
One individual only maintained any permanency of
situation. He was a gaunt, powerful, freckled man
of thirty who sprawled on a settee and regarded
Average Jones with obvious and amused interest.
In time this annoyed the Ad-Visor, who stopped
short, facing the settee.
"He's gone," said the freckled man.
"Meaning Livius the Roman?" asked Average
Jones.
"Exactly. Lucius Livius, son of Marcus Prae-
nestinus."
"Are you the representative of this rather pe-
culiar person, may I ask?"
"It would be a dull world, except for peculiar
persons," observed the man on the settee philo-
sophically. "I've seen very many peculiar persons


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 255
lately by the simple process of coming here day
after day. No, I'm not Mr. Livius' representative.
I'm only a town-bound and interested observer of
his."
"There you've got the better of me," said Aver-
age Jones. "I was rather anxious to see him my-
self."
The other looked speculatively at the trim, keen-
faced young man. "Yet you do not look like a
Latin scholar," he observed; "if you'll pardon the
comment."
"Nor do you," retorted Jones; "if the apology is
returnable."
"I suppose not," owned the other with a sigh.
"I've often thought that my classical capacity
would gain more recognition if I didn't have a skin
like Bob Fitzsimmons and hands like Ty Cobb.
Nevertheless, I'm in and of the department of Latin
of Johns Hopkins University. Name, Warren. Sit
down."
"Thanks," said the other. "Name, Jones. Profes-
sion, advertising advisor. Object, curiosity."
"A. V. R. E. Jones; better known as Average
Jones, I believe?"
"Experto crcde! Being dog-Latin for 'You seem
to know all about it.'" The new-comer eyed his
vis-a-vis. "Perhaps you—er—know Mr. Robert
Bertram," he drawled.


256 AVERAGE JONES
"Oculus—the eye—tauri—of the bull. Bull's-
eye!" said the freckled one, with a grin. "I'd heard
of your exploits through Bertram, and thought prob-
ably you'd follow the bait contained in my letter to
him."
"Nothing wrong with your nerve-system, is
there?" inquired Average Jones with mock anxiety.
"Now that I'm here, where is L. Livius And-so-
forth?"
"Elegantly but uncomfortably housed with Colo-
nel Ridgway Graeme in his ancestral barrack on
Carteret Street."
"Is this Colonel Graeme a friend of yours?"
"Friend and foe, tried and true. We meet twice a
week, usually at his house, to squabble over his
method of Latin pronunciation and his construction
of the ablative case. He's got a theory of the ab-
lative absolute," said Warren with a scowl, "fit to
fetch Tacitus howling from the shades."
"A scholar, then?"
"A very fine and finished scholar, though a faddist
of the rankest type. Speaks Latin as readily as he
does English."
"Old?"
"Over seventy."
"Rich?"
"Not in money. Taxes on his big place keep him
pinched; that and his passion for buying all kinds


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 257
of old and rare books. He's got, perhaps, an income
of five thousand, clear, of which about three thou-
sand goes in book auctions."
"Any family?"
"No. Lives with twp ancient colored servants who
look after him."
"How did our friend from B. C. connect up with
him?"
"Oh, he ran to the old colonel like a chick to its
hen. You see, there aren't so very many Latinists
in town during the hot weather. Perhaps eighteen
or twenty in all came from about here and from
Washington to see the prodigy in 'the Park of the
Boar,' after the advertisement appeared. He
wouldn't have anything to do with any of us. Pre-
tended he didn't understand our kind of Latin. I
offered him a place, myself, at a wage of more
denarii than I could well afford. I wanted a chance
to study him. Then came the colonel and fairly
grabbed him. So I sent for you—in my artless pro-
fessional way."
"Why such enthusiasm on the part of Colonel
Graeme?"
"Simple enough. Livius spoke Latin with an ac-
cent which bore out the old boy's contention. I be-
lieve they also agreed on the ablative absolute."
"Yes—er—naturally," drawled Average Jones.
"Does our early Roman speak pretty ready Latin?"


258 AVERAGE JONES
"He's fairly fluent. Sometimes he stumbles a lit-
tle on his constructions, and he's apt to be—well—
monkish—rather than classical when in full course."
"Doesn't wear the toga virilis, I suppose."
"Oh, no. Plain American clothes. It's only his
inner man that's Roman, of course. He met with a
bump on the head—this is his story, and he's got
the scar to show for it—and when he came to, he'd
lost ground a couple of thousand years and re-
turned to his former existence. No English. No
memory of who or what he'd been. No money. No
connection whatsoever with the living world."
"Humph! Wonder if he's been a student of Kip-
ling. You remember 'The Greatest Story in the
World'; the reincarnated galley slave? Now as to
Colonel Graeme; has he ever published?"
"Yes. Two small pamphlets, issued by the Classic-
ist Press, which publishes the Classical Weekly."
"Supporting his fads, I suppose."
"Right. He devoted one pamphlet to each."
Average Jones contemplated with absorbed atten-
tion an ant which was making a laborious spiral as-
cent of his cane. Not until it had gained a vantage
point on the bone handle did be speak again.
"See here, Professor Warren: I'm a passionate
devotee of the Latin tongue. I have my deep and
dark suspicions of our present modes of pronun-
ciation, all three of 'em. As for the ablative abso-


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 259
lute, its reconstruction and regeneration have been
the inspiring principle of my studious manhood.
Humbly I have sat at the feet of Learning, enshrined
in the Ridgway Graeme pamphlets. I must meet
Colonel Graeme—after reading the pamphlets. I
hope they're not long."
Warren frowned. "Colonel Graeme is a gentle-
man and my friend, Mr. Jones," he said with em-
phasis. "I won't have him made a butt."
"He shan't be, by me," said Average Jones
quietly. "Has it perhaps struck you, as his friend,
that—er—a close daily association with the psychic
remnant of a Roman citizen might conceivably be
non-conducive to his best interest?"
"Yes, it has. I see your point. You want to ap-
proach him on his weak side. But, have you Latin
enough to sustain the part? He's shrewd as a weasel
in all matters of scholarship, though a child whom
any one could fool in practical affairs."
"No; I haven't," admitted Average Jones.
"Therefore, I'm a mute. A shock in early childhood
paralyzed my centers of speech. I talk to you by
sign language, and you interpret."
"But I hardly know the deaf-mute alphabet."
"Nor I. But I'll waggle my fingers like lightning
if he says anything to me requiring an answer, and
you'll give the proper reply. Does Colonel Graeme
implicitly credit the Romanism of his guest?"


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 263
"Arrange for me to come here daily to study in
the library," whispered Jones to the Latin professor.
The other nodded.
"Now, sit* tight," added Jones.
He stepped, soft-footed, on the thick old rug,
across to the library door and threw it open. Just
inside stood Livius, an expression of startled anger
on his thin face. Quickly recovering himself, he ex-
plained, in his ready Latin, that he was about to
enter and speak to his patron.
"Shows a remarkable interest in possible conversa-
tion," whispered Jones, on his withdrawal, "for a
man who understands no English. Also does me the
honor to suspect me. He must have been a wily
chap—in the Consulship of Plancus."
Before leaving, Average Jones had received from
Colonel Graeme a general invitation to spend as
much time as he chose, studying among the books.
The old man-servant, Saul, had orders to admit him
at any hour. He returned to his hotel to write a
courteous note of acknowledgment.
Many hours has Average Jones spent more tedi-
ously than those passed in the cool seclusion of Colo-
nel Ridgway Graeme's treasure-house of print. He
burrowed among quaint accumulations of forgotten
classics. He dipped with astonishment into the sav-
age and ultra-Rabelaisian satire of Von Hutten's
"Epistolce Obscurorum Virorum," which set early


264 AVERAGE JONES
sixteenth century Europe a-roar with laughter at the
discomfited monks; and he cleansed himself from
that tainted atmosphere in the fresh air and free
English of a splendid Audubon "first"—and all the
time he was conscious that the Roman watched,
watched, watched. More than once Livius offered
aid, seeking to apprise himself of the supposed
mute's line of investigation; but the other smilingly
fended him off. At the end of four days, Average
Jones had satisfied himself that if Livius were seek-
ing anything in particular, he had an indefinite task
before him, for the colonel's bound treasures were
in indescribable confusion. Apparently he had
bought from far and near, without definite theme or
purpose. As he bought he read, and having read,
cast aside; and where a volume fell, there it had li-
cense to lie. No cataloguer had ever sought to re-
store order to that bibliographic riot. To seek any
given book meant a blind voyage, without compass
or chart, throughout the mingled centuries.
Often Colonel Graeme spent hours in one or the
other of the huge book-rooms talking with his
strange protege and making copious notes. Usually
the old gentleman questioned and the other an-
swered. But one morning the attitude seemed, to the
listening Ad-Visor, to be reversed. Livius, in the
far corner of the room, was speaking in a low tone.
To judge from the older man's impatient manner,





266 AVERAGE JONES
pocket. No sooner was Livius out of the room than
Average Jones scanned the desk. His face lighted
with a sudden smile. Colonel Graeme never read a
newspaper; boasted, in fact, that he wouldn't have
one about the place. But, as Average Jones distinctly
recalled, he had, himself, that very morning brought
in a copy of the Globe and dropped it into the scrap-
basket near the writing-table. It was gone. Livius
had taken it.
"If he's got the newspaper-reading habit," said
Average Jones to himself, "I'll set a trap for him.
But Warren must furnish the bait."
He went to look up his aide. The conference be-
tween them was long and exhaustive, covering the
main points of the case from the beginning.
"Did you find out from Colonel Graeme," in-
quired Average Jones, "whether Livius affected any
particular brand of literature?"
"Yes. He seems to be specializing on late seven-
teenth century British classicism. Apparently he
considers that the flower of British scholarship
of that time wrote a very inferior kind of dog-
Latin."
"Late seventeenth century Latinity," commented
Average Jones. "That—er—gives us a fair start.
Now as to the body-servant."
"Old Saul? I questioned him about strange call-
ers. He said he remembered only two, besides an


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 269
"He didn't. He was a scholar already; an accom-
plished one, who went wrong through drink and be-
came a crook, specializing in rare books and prints.
His name is Enderby; you'll find it in the Harvard
catalogue. He's supposed to be dead. My assistant
traced him through his Spanish-Latin teacher, a
priest."
"But even allowing for his scholarship, he must
have put in a deal of work perfecting himself in
readiness of speech and accent."
"So he did. Therefore the prize must be big. A
man of Enderby's caliber doesn't concoct a scheme
of such ingenuity, and go into bondage with it, for
nothing. Do you belong to the Cosmic Club?"
The assistant professor stared. "No," he said.
"I'd like to put you up there. One advantage of
membership is that its roster includes experts in
every known line of erudition, from scarabs to skee-
ing. For example, I am now going to telegraph for
aid from old Millington, who seldom misses a book
auction and is a human bibliography of the wander-
ings of all rare volumes. I'm going to find out from
him what British publication of the late seventeenth
century in Latin is very valuable; also what vol-
umes of that time have changed hands in the last six
months."
"Colonel Graeme went to a big book auction in
New York early in March," volunteered Warren,


270 AVERAGE JONES
"but he told me he didn't pick up anything of par-
ticular value."
"Then it's something he doesn't know about and
Livius does. I'm going to take advantage of our
Roman's rather un-B.-C.-like habit of reading the
daily papers by trying him out with this adver-
tisement."
Average Jones wrote rapidly and tossed the result
to his coadjutor who read:
"Lost—Old book printed in Latin. Buff leather
binding, a little faded (Tt's safe to be that,' ex-
plained Average Jones). No great value except to
owner. Return to Colonel Ridgway Graeme, 11 Car-
teret Street, and receive reward."
The advertisement made its appearance in big
type on the front pages of the Baltimore paper of
the following day. That evening Average Jones
met Warren, for dinner, with a puckered brow.
"Did Livius rise to the bait?" asked the scholar.
"Did he!" chuckled Average Jones. "He's been
nervous as a cat all day and hardly has looked at
'the library. But what puzzles me is this." He ex-
hibited a telegram from New York.
"Millington says positively no book of that time
and description any great value. Enderby at Barclay
auction in March and made row over some book
which he missed because it was put up out of turn


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 271
in catalogue. Barclay auctioneer thinks it was one
of Percival privately bound books 1680-1703. An
anonymous book of Percival library, De Meritis
Librorum Britannorum, was sold to Colonel Graeme
for $47, a good price. When do I get in on this?
"(Signed) Robert Bertram."
"I know that treatise," said Warren. "It isn't par-
ticularly rare."
Average Jones stared at the telegram in silence.
Finally he drawled: "There are—er—books and—
er—books—and—er—things in books. Wait here
for me."
Three hours later he reappeared with collar wilted,
but spirits elate, and abruptly announced:
"Warren, I'm a cobbler."
"A what?"
"A cobbler. Mend your boots, you know."
"Are you in earnest?"
"Certainly. Haven't you ever remarked that a
serious-minded earnestness always goes with cob-
bling? Though I'm not really a practical cobbler,
but a proprietary one. Our friend, Bertram, will
dress and act the practical part. I've wired him and
he's replied, collect, accepting the job. You and I
will be in the background."
"Where?"
"No. 27 Jasmine Street. Not a very savory lo-
cality. Why is it, Warren, that the beauty of a city


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 275
"Whish—swish; whish-swish," sounded from the
rear room.
"Excuse me," said Bertram, who had not ceased
from his pretended work. "I have to get a piece of
leather."
He stepped into the back room where Average
Jones, his face alight, held up a piece of paper upon
which he had hurriedly scrawled:
"Mss. bound into cover. Get it out of him. Tell
him you've a brother who is a Latin scholar."
Bertram nodded, caught up a strip of calf-skin
and returned.
"Yes, sir," he said, "the split cover and what's
inside?"
The other started. "You didn't get it out?" he
cried. "You didn't tear it!"
"No, sir. It's there safe enough. But some of it
can be made out."
"You said you didn't read Latin."
fc-^No, sir; but I have a brother that went through
the Academy. He reads a little." This was thin ice,
but Bertram went forward with assumed assurance.
"He thinks the manuscript is quite rare. Oh, Fritz!
Come in."
"Any letter of Bacon's is rare, of course," re-
turned the other impatiently. "Therefore, I purpose
offering you fifty dollars reward."
He looked up as Average Jones entered. The


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 277
moment the ample hand of Professor Warren,
bunched into a highly competent fist, flicked across
and caught the assailant under the ear. Enderby,
alias Livius, fell as if smitten by a cestus. As his
arm touched the floor, Average Jones kicked uner-
ringly at the wrist and the knife flew and tinkled in
a far corner. Bertram, with a bound, landed on the
fallen man's chest and pinned him.
"Did he get you, Average?" he cried.
"Not—er—this time. Pretty good—er—team
work," drawled the Ad-Visor. "We've got our man
for felonious assault, at least."
Enderby, panting under Bertram's solid knee,
blinked and struggled.
"No use, Livius," said Average Jones. "Might as
well quiet down and confess. Ease up a little on him,
Bert. Take a look at that scar of his first though."
"Superficial cut treated with make-up paint; a
clever job," pronounced Bertram after a quick ex-
amination.
"As I supposed," said Average Jones.
'Let me in on the deal," pleaded Livius. "That
letter is worth ten thousand, twelve thousand, fif-
teen thousand dollars—anything you want to ask,
if you find the right purchaser. And you can't man-
age it without me. Let me in."
"Thinks we're crooks, too?" remarked Average
Jones. "Exactly what's in this wonderful letter?"


THE MAN WHO SPOKE LATIN 279
"You've found Livius," he said, with relief. "I
had begun to fear for him."
"Colonel Graeme," began Average Jones, "you
have—"
1 "What! Speech I" cried the old gentleman. "And
you a mute! What does this mean?"
"Never mind him," broke in Enderby Livius.
"There's something more important."
But the colonel had shrunk back. "English from
you, Livius!" he cried, setting his hand to his brow.
"All will be explained in time, Colonel," Warren
assured him. "Meanwhile, you have a document of
the utmost importance and value. Do you remem-
ber buying one of the Percival volumes at the Bar-
clay auction?"
The collector drew his brows down in an effort to
remember.
"An octavo, in fairly good condition?" he asked.
"Yes, yes!" cried Enderby eagerly. "Where is
it? What did you do with it?"
"It was in Latin—very false Latin." The four
men leaned forward, breathless. "Oh, I remember.
It slipped from my pocket and fell into the river as
I was crossing the ferry to Jersey."
There was a dead, flat, stricken silence. The»
Average Jones turned hollow eyes upon Warren.
"Professor," he said, with a rueful attempt at a
smile, "what's the past participle, passive, plural, of
the Latin verb, 'to sting'?"


CHAPTER X
THE ONE BEST BET
"1Y yTORRISON has jammed the Personal Lib-
1.VX erty bill through," said Waldemar, scrawl-
ing a head on his completed editorial, with one eye
on the clock, which pointed to midnight.
"That was to be expected, wasn't it?" asked Av-
erage Jones.
"Oh, yes," replied the editor-owner of the Uni-
versal in his heavy bass. "And now the governor
announces he will veto it."
"Thereby bringing the whole power of the gam-
bling ring down on him like an avalanche."
"Naturally. Morrison has declared open war
against 'Pharisee Phil,' as he calls Governor Arthur.
Says he'll pass the bill over his veto. In his heart
he knows he can't do it. Still, he's a hard fighter."
Average Jones tipped his chair back against the
wall of the editorial sanctum. "What do you
suppose," he inquired with an air of philosophic
speculation, "that the devil will do with Carroll Mor-
rison's soul when he gets it? Deodorize it?"
280


THE ONE BEST BET 281
"Harsh words, young sir! Harsh words and
treasonable against one of our leading citizens;
multimillionaire philanthropist, social leader, direc-
tor of banks, insurance companies and railroads,
and emperor of the race-track, the sport of kings."
"The sport of kings—maintained on the spoils of
clerks," retorted Average Jones. "'To improve the
breed of horses,' if you please! To make thieves of
men and harlots of women, because Carroll Morri-
son must have his gambling-game dividends! And
now he has our 'representative' legislature working
for him to that honorable end!"
"Man to see you, Mr. Waldemar," said an office
boy, appearing at the door.
"Too late," grunted the editor.
"He says it's very particular, sir, and to tell you
it's something Mr. Morrison is interested in."
"Morrison, eh? All right. Just step into the
inner office, will you, Jones? Leave the door open.
There might be something interesting."
Hardly had Average Jones found a chair in the
darkened office when the late caller appeared. He
was middle-aged, pursy, and dressed with slap-dash
ostentation. His face was bloated and seared with
excesses. But it was not intoxication that sweated
on his forehead and quivered in his jaw. It was
terror. He slumped into the waiting chair and
mouthed mutely at the editor.


284 AVERAGE JONES
"Not much—having been reared in the news-
paper business."
Stooping, Average Jones picked up the glasses
which the man had thrown on the floor and exam-
ined them carefully. "Rather a fine instrument,"
he observed. "Marked N. K. I think I'll follow
up the owner."
"You'll never find him now. He has too much
start."
"Not at all. When a man is in his state of abject
funk, it's ten to one he lands at the nearest bar.
Wait for me."
In fifteen minutes Average Jones was back.
There was a curious expression on his face as he
nodded an assent to his friend's inquiring eyebrows.
"Where?" asked Waldemar.
"On the floor of a Park Row saloon."
"Dead drunk, eh?"
"No—er; not—er—drunk. Dead."
Waldemar stiffened in his chair. "Dead!" he re-
peated.
"Poison, probably. The ad was his finish, as he
said. The next thing is to find it."
"The first edition will be down any minute now.
But it'll take some finding. Why, counting 'classi-
fied,' we're carrying fifteen hundred ads. in every
issue. With no clue to the character of this one—"


THE ONE BEST BET 285
"Plenty of clue," said Average Jones suavely.
"You'll find it on the sporting page, I think."
"Judging from the man's appearance? Rather
far-fetched, isn't it?"
"Judging from a pair of very fine binoculars, a
mention of Carroll Morrison's name, and, prin-
cipally, some two thousand dollars in a huge heap."
"I don't quite see where that leads."
"No? The bills must have been mostly ones and
twos. Those are a book-maker's takings. The bin-
ocular is a racing-man's glass. Our late friend
used the language of the track. I think we'll find
him on page nine."
"Try," said Waldemar, handing him a paper still
spicy with the keen odor of printer's ink.
Swiftly the Ad-Visor's practised eye ran over the
column. It checked at the "offer" of a notorious
firm of tipsters who advertised to sell "inside in-
formation" on the races to their patrons. As a
special lure, they were, on this day, letting the pub-
lic in on a few particularly "good things" free.
"There you are," said Average Jones, pointing
out the advertisement.
To his astonishment, Waldemar noted that his
friend's indicatory finger shook a little. Normally,
Average Jones was the coolest and most controlled
of men.


286 AVERAGE JONES
"Noble and Gale's form ad," he observed. "I see
nothing unusual in that."
"Yet—er—I fancy it's quite important—er—in
its way."
The editor stared. "When you talk like a bored
Britisher, Average," he remarked, "there's sure to
be something in the air. What is it?"
"Look at the last line."
Again Waldemar turned to the paper. "'One
Best Bet,'" he read. "'That the Pharisee will
never finish.' Well?"
"'That the Pharisee will never finish,' " repeated
Average Jones. "If the Pharisee is a horse, the
line becomes absurd at once. How could any one
know that a horse would fail to finish in a race?
But if it—er—referred—er—to a man, an official
known—er—as Pharisee Phil—"
"Wait!" Waldemar had jumped to his feet. A
thrill, increasing and pulsating through the floor be-
neath them, shook the building. The editor jumped
for the telephone.
"Composing room; quick! Give me the fore-
man. Hello! That you, Corrigan? Stop the
presses ... I don't care if we miss every train
in the country . . . Don't answer back. This is
Mr. Waldemar. Stop the presses!"
The thrill waned and ceased. At the telephone,
Waldemar continued: "Look up the Noble and Gale


THE ONE BEST BET 289
the dividend. By the way, where is Governor Ar-
thur?"
"On the train for this city. He's to review the
parade at the Harrisonia Centennial, and unveil the
statute to-morrow night; that is, to-night, to be ac-
curate."
"A good opportunity," murmured Average Jones.
"What I In the sight of a hundred thousand peo-
ple?"
"That might be the very core of the opportunity.
And at night."
"If you feel certain, it's a case for the police, isn't
it?"
"Hardly! The gambling gang control the police,
wholly. They would destroy the trail at once."
"Then why not warn the governor?"
"I don't know him."
"Suppose I make an appointment to take you to
see him in the morning?"
This was agreed upon. At ten o'clock Governor
Arthur received them at his hotel, greeting Average
Jones with flattering warmth.
"You're the amateur detective who scared the
Honorable William Linder out of the mayoralty
nomination," said he, shaking hands. "What are
you going to do to me?"
"Give you some racing news to read, Governor."
The governor took the advertisement proof and


THE ONE BEST BET 291
"Then," said Waldemar, "any attempt to persuade
you against appearing at Harrisonia to-night would
be time wasted."
"Absolutely, my dear Waldemar. But don't think
that I'm not appreciative of your thoughtfulness and
that of Mr. Jones."
"What is the program of the day, Governor?"
asked Average Jones.
"Rather a theatrical one. I'm to ride along Har-
rison Avenue to the reviewing stand, in the old
coach-of-state of the Harrison family, a lofty old
ark, high as a circus wagon, which has been patched
up for the occasion. Just before I reach the review-
ing stand, a silk cord is to be handed to me and I am
to pull the veil from the great civic statue with that,
as I move on."
"Then I think that Mr. Waldemar and I will look
the ground over. Could we get you by telephone,
sir, if necessary?"
"Any time up to seven o'clock."
"What do you think of the chance of their passing
the bill over your veto?" asked Waldemar.
"They are spending money as it has never been
spent before," replied Governor Arthur. "I'll admit
to you, Waldemar, that if I could find any legitimate
method of calling Morrison off, I would not scruple
to use it. It is, of course, Morrison's money that we
are fighting."


296 AVERAGE JONES
"So far, so good," approved Waldemar.
"I can approximate the height of the steel beam
from the ground, close enough for a trial formula,"
continued Average Jones. "Now, Waldemar, I
call your attention to that restaurant on the opposite .
corner."
Waldemar conned the designated building with
attention. "Well," he said finally, "what of it? I
don't see anything wrong with it."
"Precisely my point," returned the Ad-Visor with
a grin. "Neither do I. Therefore, suppose you go
there and order luncheon for two, while I walk down
to the next block and back again. I'll be with you
in four minutes."
He was somewhat better than his word. Drop-
ping into the chair opposite his friend, he figured
swiftly and briefly on the back of an envelope, which
he returned to his pocket.
"I suppose you've done a vast amount of investi-
gating since you left me," remarked the editor
sardonically. "Meanwhile, the plot to murder the
governor goes merrily on."
"I've done a fair amount of pacing over distance,"
retorted Average Jones imperturbably. "As for the
governor, they can't kill him till he comes, can they?
Besides, there's plenty of time for them to change
their minds. As a result of my little constitutional
just now, and a simple exercise in mathematics, you


THE ONE BEST BET 299
of paper, which, after some emendation, he put
away.
"That'll do for a heading," he remarked. "Now,
Waldemar, I want you to get the governor on the
'phone and tell him, if he'll follow directions, we'll
put the personal liberty bill where the wicked cease
from troubling. Morrison is to be in the reviewing
stand, isn't he?"
"Yes; there's a special place reserved for him,
next the press seats."
"Good! By the way, you'd better send for two
press seats for you and myself. Now, what I want
the governor to do is this: get a copy of the Har-
risonia Evening Bell, fold it to an advertisement
headed 'Offer to Photographers,' and as he passes
Carroll Morrison on the stand, hold it up and say to
him just this: 'Better luck next time.' For any-
thing further, I'll see you in the reviewing stand.
Do you think he'll do it?"
"It sounds as foolish as a college initiation stunt.
Still, you heard what Governor Arthur said about
his confidence in you. But what is this advertise-
ment?"
"As yet, it isn't. But it will be, as soon as I can
get to the office of the Bell. You'll meet me on this
corner at seven o'clock, then?"
"Yes. Meantime, to be safe, I'll look after the
reviewing stand tickets myself."


goo AVERAGE JONES
At the hour named, the editor arrived. Average
Jones was already there, accompanied by a messen-
ger boy. The boy wore the cheerful grin of one who
has met with an unexpected favor of fortune.
"They've returned, both of 'em," said Average
Jones as Waldemar approached. "What about the
governor?"
"It took a mighty lot of persuasion, but he'll do
it," replied the editor.
"Skip, son," said the Ad-Visor, handing the mes-
senger boy a folded newspaper. "The two gentle-
men on the third floor rear. And be sure you say
that it's a personal, marked copy."
The boy crossed the street and entered the house.
In two minutes he emerged, nodded to Average
Jones and walked away. Five minutes passed. Then
the front door opened cautiously and a tall, evil-
looking man slunk into the vestibule. A second
man followed him. They glanced eagerly from left
to right. Average Jones stepped out to the curb-
stone.
"Here's the message from Karboe," he called.
"My God!" gasped the tall man.
For an instant he made as if to turn back. Then,
clearing the steps at one jump, he stumbled,
sprawled, was up again instantly and speeding up
the street, away from Average Jones, turned the


THE ONE BEST BET 301
corner neck and neck with his companion who, run-
ning powerfully, had overtaken him.
The door of the house stood ajar. Before Walde-
mar had recovered from his surprise, Average Jones
was inside the house. Hesitation beset the editor.
Should he follow or wait? He paused, one foot on
the step. A loud crash within resolved his doubts.
Up he started, when the voice of Average Jones in
colloquy with the woman who had received them
before, checked him. The colloquy seemed excited
but peaceful. Presently Average Jones came down
the steps.
"They left the ad," said he. "Have you seen
it?"
"No; I hadn't time to get a paper," replied Wal-
demar, taking the copy extended to him and reading,
in large display:
OFFER TO PHOTOGRAPHERS
$1,000 Reward for Special Flash-light Photo
of Governor Arthur in To-night's Pageant.
Must be Taken According to Plans and Speci-
fications Designated by the Late Nick Karboe.
Apply to A. Jones, Ad-Visor.
Astor Court Temple, New York City.
"No wonder they ran," said Waldemar with a
grin, as he digested this document.


302 AVERAGE JONES
"And so must we if we're to get through the
crowd and reach the reviewing stand," warned
Average Jones, glancing at his watch.
Their seats, which they attained with some diffi-
culty, were within a few feet of the governor's box.
Within reach of them sat Carroll Morrison, his long,
pale, black-bearded face set in that immobility to
which he had schooled it. But the cold eyes roved
restlessly and the little muscles at the corners of the
lips twitched.
"Tell me that he isn't in on the game!" whispered
Average Jones, and Waldemar nodded.
The sound of music from down the street turned
all faces in that direction. A roar of cheering swept
toward them and was taken up in the stands. The
governor, in his high coach, came in sight. And, at
that moment, terror struck into the soul of Walde-
mar.
"Suppose they came back!" he whispered to Aver-
age Jones. "We've left the house unguarded."
"I've fixed that," replied the Ad-Visor in the same
tone. "Watch Morrison!"
Governor Arthur approached the civic statue. An
official, running out to the coach, handed him a
silken cord, which he secured with a turn around
the wrist. The coach rolled on. The cord tautened;
the swathings sundered and fell from the gleaming
splendor of marble, and a blinding flash, followed


304 AVERAGE JONES
"Mr. Morrison, I want you to visit a house near
here. Mr. Jones and Mr. Waldemar will come
along; you know them, perhaps. Please don't pro-
test. I positively will not take a refusal. We have
a motor-car waiting."
Furious, but not daring to refuse, Morrison found
himself whirled swiftly away, and after a few turns
to shake off the crowd, into Spencer Street. With
his captors, he mounted to the third floor of an old
frame house. The rear room door had been broken
in. Inside stood a strange instrument, resembling
a large camera, which had once stood upright on a
steel tripod riveted to the floor. The legs of the
tripod were twisted and bent. A half-demolished
chair near by suggested the agency of destruction.
"Just to render it harmless," explained Average
Jones. "It formerly pointed through that window,
so that a bullet from the barrel would strike that
pole 'way yonder in Harrison Street, after first pass-
ing through any intervening body. Yours, for in-
stance, Governor."
"Do I understand that this is a gun, Mr. Jones?"
asked that official.
"Of a sort," replied the Ad-Visor, opening up the
camera-box and showing a large barrel superimposed
on a smaller one. "This is a sighting-glass," he ex-
plained, tapping the larger barrel. "And this," tap-
ping the smaller, "carries a small but efficient bullet.


CHAPTER XI
THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG
TO this day, Average Jones maintains that he
felt a distinct thrill at first sight of the ad-
vertisement. Yet Fate might well have chosen a
more appropriate ambush in any one of a hundred
of the strange clippings which were grist to the
Ad-Visor's mill. Out of a bulky pile of the day's
paragraphs, however, it was this one that leaped, sig-
nificant, to his eye.
WANTED—Ten thousand loathly black beetles, by
a leaseholder who contracted to leave a house in
the same condition as he found it. Ackroyd, 100 W.
Sixteenth St., New York.
"Black beetles, eh?" observed Average Jones.
"This Ackroyd person seems to be a merry little
jester. Well, I'm feeling rather jocular, myself, this
morning. How does one collect black beetles, I won-
der? When in doubt, inquire of the resourceful
Simpson."
He pressed a button and his confidential clerk en-
tered.
"Good morning, Simpson," said Average Jones.
309


310 AVERAGE JONES
"Are you acquainted with that shy but pervasive ani-
mal, the domestic black beetle?"
"Yes, sir; I board," said Simpson simply.
"I suppose there aren't ten thousand black beetles
in your boarding-house, though?" inquired Average
Jones.
Simpson took it under advisement. "Hardly," he
decided.
"I've got to have 'em to fill an order. At least,
I've got to have an instalment of 'em, and to-mor-
row."
Being wholly without imagination, the confi-
dential clerk was impervious to surprise or shock.
This was fortunate, for otherwise, his employment
as practical aide to Average Jones would probably
have driven him into a madhouse. He now ran his
long, thin, clerkly hands through his long, thin,
clerkly hair.
"Ramson, down on Fulton Street, will have them,
if any one has," he said presently. "He does busi-
ness under the title of the Insect Nemesis, you know.
I'll go there at once."
Returning to his routine work, Average Jones
found himself unable to dislodge the advertisement
from his mind. So presently he gave way to tempta-
tion, called up Bertram at the Cosmic Club, and
asked him to come to the Astor Court Temple office^
at his convenience. Scenting more adventure, Bert-


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 313
"Information is your long suit, Bert. Now, if you
only had intelligence to correspond—" Average
Jones broke off and grinned mildly, first at his
friend, then at the advertisement.
Bertram caught up the paper and studied it
.
"Well, what docs it mean?" he demanded.
"It means that Ackroyd, being about to give up
his rented house, intends to saddle it with a bad
name. Probably he's had a row with the agent or
owner, and is getting even by making the place
difficult to rent again. Nobody wants to take a
house with the reputation of an entomological re-
sort."
"It would be just like Oily Ackroyd," remarked
Bertram. "He's a vindictive scoundrel. Only a few
days ago, he nearly killed a poor devil of a drug
clerk, over some trifling dispute. He managed to
keep it out of the newspapers but he had to pay a
stiff fine."
"That might be worth looking up, too," ruminated
Average Jones thoughtfully.
He turned to his telephone in answer to a ring.
"All right, come in, Simpson," he said.
The confidential clerk appeared. "Ramson says
that regular black beetles are out of season, sir," he
reported. "But he can send to the country and dig
up plenty of red-and-black ones."
"That will do," returned the Ad-Visor. "Tell him


314 AVERAGE JONES
to have two or three hundred here to-morrow morn-
ing."
Bertram bent a severe gaze on his friend. "Mean-
ing that you're going to follow up this freak affair?"
he inquired.
"Just that. I can't explain why, but—well, Bert,
it's a hunch. At the worst, Ackroyd's face when he
sees the beetles should be worth the money."
"When you frivol, Average, I wash my hands
of you. But I warn you, look out for Ackroyd. He's
as big as he is ugly; a tough customer."
"All right. I'll just put on some old clothes, to
dress the part of a beetle-purveyor correctly, and
also in case I get 'em torn in my meeting with Judge
'Oily.' I'll see you later and report, if I survive
his wrath."
Thus it was that, on the morning after this dia-
logue, a clean-built young fellow walked along West
Sixteenth Street, appreciatively sniffing the sunny
crispness of the May air. He was rather shabby-
looking, yet his demeanor was by no means shabby.
It was confident and easy. On the evidence of the
bandbox which he carried, his mission should have
been menial; but he bore himself wholly unlike one
subdued to petty employments. His steady, gray
eyes showed a glint of anticipation as he turned in
at the gate of the high, broad, brown house standing
back, aloof and indignant, from the roaring en-


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 315
croachments of trade. He set his burden down and
pulled the bell.
The door opened promptly to the deep, far-away-
clangor. A flashing impression of girlish freshness,
vigor, and grace was disclosed to the caller against
a background of interior gloom. He stared a little
more patently than was polite. Whatever his ex-
pectation of amusement, this, evidently, was not the
manifestation looked for. The girl glanced not at
him, but at the box, and spoke a trifle impatiently.
"If it's my hat, it's very late. You should have
gone to the basement."
"It isn't, miss," said the young man, in a form
of address, the semi-servility of which seemed dis-
tinctly out of tone with the quietly clear and as-
sured voice. "It's the insects."
"The what?"
"The bugs, miss."
He extracted from his pocket a slip of paper,
looked from it to the numbered door, as one verify-
ing an address, and handed it to her.
"From yesterday's copy of the Banner, miss.
You're not going back on that, surely," he said some-
what reproachfully.
She read, and as she read her eyes widened to
lakes of limpid brown. Then they crinkled at the
corners, and her laugh rose from the mid-tone con-
tralto, to a high, bird-like trill of joyousness. The


316 AVERAGE JONES
infection of it tugged at the young man's throat, but
he successfully preserved his mask of flat and re-
spectful dullness.
"It must have been Uncle," she gasped finally.
"He said he'd be quits with the real estate agent be-
fore he left. How perfectly absurd! And are
those the creatures in that box?"
"The first couple of hundred of 'em, miss."
"Two hundred!" Again the access of laughter
swelled the rounded bosom as the breeze fills a sail.
"Where did you get them?"
"Woodpile, ash-heap, garbage-pail," said the
young man stolidly. "Any particular kind pre-
ferred, Miss Ackroyd?"
The girl looked at him with suspicion, but his face
was blankly innocent.
"I'm not Miss Ackroyd," she began with em-
phasis, when a querulous voice from an inner room
called out: "Whom are you talking to, Sylvia?"
"A young man with a boxful of beetles," returned
the girl, adding in brisk French: "77 est tres amus-
ant ce farceur. Je ne le comprends pas du tout. C'est
une blague, peut-etre. Si on I'invitait dans la maison
pour un moment?"
Through one of the air-holes, considerately
punched in the cardboard cover of the box, a sturdy
crawler had succeeded in pushing himself. He was,
in the main, of a shiny and well-groomed black, but


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 317
two large patches of crimson gave him the festive
appearance of being garbed in a brilliant sash. As
he stood rubbing his fore-legs together in self-con-
gratulation over his exploit, his bearer addressed him
in French quite as ready as the girl's:
"Permettez-moi, Monsieur le Colcoptere, de vous
presenter mes excuses pour cette demoiselle qui
s'exprime en langue etrangere chez elle."
"Don't apologize to the beetle on my account,"
retorted the girl with spirit. "You're here on your
own terms, you know, both of you."
Average Jones mutely held up the box in one
hand and the advertisement in the other. The ad-
venturer-bug flourished a farewell to the girl with
his antennae, and retired within to advise his fel-
lows of the charms of freedom.
"Very well," said the girl, in demure tones,
though lambent mirth still flickered, golden, in the
depths of the brown eyes. "If you persist, I can
only suggest that you come back when Judge Ack-
royd is here. You won't find him particularly
amenable to humor, particularly when perpetrated
by a practical joker in masquerade."
"Discovered," murmured Average Jones. "I
shouldn't have vaunted my poor French. But must
I really take my little friends all the way back? You
suggested to the mystic voice within that I might
be invited inside."


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 319
I answered the advertisement. But now that I'm
here and find you here, it looks—er—as if it might
—er—be more serious."
A tinge of pink came into the girl's cheeks, but
she answered lightly enough:
"Indeed, it may, for you, if uncle finds you here
with those beetles."
"Never mind me or the beetles. I'd like to know
about the dog that your aunt is worrying over. Is
he here with you?"
The soft curve of Miss Graham's lips straight-
ened a little. "I really think," she said with de-
cision, "that you had better explain further before
questioning."
"Nothing simpler. Once upon a time there lived
a crack-brained young Don Quixote who wandered
through an age of buried romance piously search-
ing for trouble. And, twice upon a time, there
dwelt in an enchanted stone castle in West Six-
teenth Street an enchanting young damsel in dis-
tress—"
"I'm not a damsel in distress," interrupted Miss
Graham, passing over the adjective.
The young man leaned to her. The half smile
had passed from his lips, and his eyes were very
grave.
"Not—er—if your dog were to—er—disap-
pear?" he drawled quietly.


320 AVERAGE JONES
The swift unexpectedness of the counter broke
down the girl's guard.
"You mean Uncle Hawley," she said.
"And your suspicions jump with mine."
"They don't!" she denied hotly. "You're very
unjust and impertinent."
"I don't mean to be impertinent," he said evenly.
"And I have no monopoly of injustice."
"What do you know about Uncle Hawley?"
"Your aunt—"
"I won't hear a word against my aunt."
"Not from me, be assured. Your aunt, so you
have just told me, believes that your dog is in dan-
ger of being stolen. Why? Because she knows
that the person most interested has been scheming
against the animal, and yet she is afraid to warn
you openly. Doesn't that indicate who it is?"
"Mr. Jones, I've no right even to let you talk like
this to me. Have you anything definite against
Judge Ackroyd?"
"In this case, only suspicion."
Her head went up. "Then I think there is noth-
ing more to be said."
The young man flushed, but his voice was steady
as he returned:
"I disagree with you. And I beg you to cut
short your visit here, and return to your home at
once."


322 AVERAGE JONES
"Very well," conceded Miss Graham reluctantly,
"it's a most unusual thing. But I'll agree to that."
"Au revoir, then," he said, and was gone.
Somewhat to her surprise and uneasiness, Sylvia
Graham experienced a distinct satisfaction when,
late that afternoon, she beheld her unconventional
acquaintance mounting the steps with a buoyant
and assured step. Upon being admitted, he went
promptly to the point.
"I've got it."
"Your justification for coming back?" she asked.
"Exactly. Have you heard anything of some
trouble in which Judge Ackroyd was involved last
week?"
"Uncle has a very violent temper," admitted the
girl evasively. "But I don't see what—"
"Pardon me. You will see. That row was with
a drug clerk."
"Well?"
"In an obscure drug store several blocks from
here."
"Yes?"
"The drug clerk insisted—as the law requires—
on Judge Ackroyd registering for a certain pur-
chase."
"Perhaps he was impertinent about it."
"Possibly. The point is that the prospective pur-


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 323
chase was cyanide of potassium, a deadly and in-
stantaneous poison."
"Are you sure?" asked the girl, in a low voice.
"I've just come from the store. How long have
you been here at your uncle's?"
"A week."
"Then just about the time of your coming with
the dog, your uncle undertook to obtain a swift and
sure poison. Have I gone far enough?"
"I—I don't know."
"Well, am I still ordered out of the house?"
"N-n-no."
"Thank you for your enthusiastic hospitality,"
said Average Jones so dryly that a smile relaxed
the girl's troubled face. "With that encouragement
we'll go on. What is your uncle's attitude toward
the dog?"
"Almost what you might call ingratiating. But
Peter Paul—that's my dog's name, you know—
doesn't take to uncle. He's a crotchety old doggie."
"He's a wise old doggie," amended the other,
with emphasis. "Has your uncle taken him out, at
all?"
"Once he tried to. I met them at the corner. All
four of Peter Paul's poor old fat legs were braced,
and he was hauling back as hard as he could against
the leash."


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 325
with the terms of the will, the dog would be out of
his troubles, and you would be out of yours."
"It would really be a relief. Peter Paul suffers
so from asthma, poor old beastie. The vet. says he
can live only a month or two longer, anyway. But
I've got to do as Grandmother wished, and keep
Peter Paul alive as long as possible."
"Admitted." Average Jones fell into a baffled si-
lence, studying the pattern of the rug with restless
eyes. When he looked up into Miss Graham's face
again it was with a changed expression.
"Miss Graham," he said slowly, "won't you try
to forget, for the moment, the circumstances of our
meeting, and think of me only as a friend of your
friends who is very honestly eager to be a friend to
you, when you most need one?"
Now, Average Jones's birth-fairy had endowed
him with one priceless gift: the power of inspiring
an instinctive confidence in himself. Sylvia Graham
felt, suddenly, that a hand, sure and firm, had been
outstretched to guide her on a dark path. In one of
those rare flashes of companionship which come only
when clean and honorable spirits recognize one an-
other, all consciousness of sex was lost between
them. The girl's gaze met the man's level, and was
held in a long, silent regard.
"Yes," she said simply; and the heart of Average
Jones rose and swore a high loyalty.


326 AVERAGE JONES
"Listen, then. I think I see a clear way. Judge
Ackroyd will kill the dog if he can, and so effectually
conceal the body that no funeral can be held over it,
thereby rendering your grandmother's bequest to
you void. He has only a few days to do it in, but I
don't think that all your watchfulness can restrain
him. Now, on the other hand, if the dog should die
a natural death and be buried, he can still contest
the will. But if he should kill Peter Paul and hide
the body where we could discover it, the game would
be up for him, as he then wouldn't even dare to come
into court with a contest. Do you follow me?"
"Yes. But you wouldn't ask me to be a party to
any such thing."
"You're a party, involuntarily, by remaining here.
But do your best to save Peter Paul, if you will.
And please call me up immediately at the Cosmic
Club, if anything in my line turns up."
"What is your line?" asked Miss Graham, the
smile returning to her lips. "Creepy, crawly bugs?
Or imperiled dogs? Or rescuing prospectively dis-
tressed damsels?"
"Technically it's advertising," replied Average
Jones, who had been formulating a shrewd little
plan of his own. "Let me recommend to you the ad-
vertising columns of the daily press. They're often
amusing. Moreover, your uncle might break out in
print again. ,Who knows?"


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 327
"Who, indeed? I'll read religiously."
"And, by the way, my beetles. I forgot and left
them here. Oh, there's the box. I may have a very
specific use for them later. Au revoir—and may it
be soon!"
The two days succeeding seemed to Average
Jones, haunted as. he was by an importunate craving
to look again into Miss Graham's limpid and change-
ful eyes, a dull and sodden period of probation. The
messenger boy who finally brought her expected
note, looked to him like a Greek godling. The note
enclosed this clipping:
LOST—Pu£ dog answering to the name of Peter
Paul. \ cry old and asthmatic. Last seen on
West 16th Street. Liberal reward for information to
Anxious. Care of Banner office.
Dear Mr. Jones (she had written):
Are you a prophet? (Average Jones chuckled, at
this point.) The enclosed seems to be distinctly in
our line. Could you come some time this afternoon?
I'm puzzled and a little anxious.
Sincerely yours,
Sylvia Graham.
Average Jones could, and did. He found Miss
Graham's piquant face under the stress of excite-
ment, distinctly more alluring than before.
"Isn't it strange?" she said, holding out a hand
in welcome. "Why should any one advertise for
my Peter Paul? He isn't lost."


330 AVERAGE JONES
guarding the street corners in case—er—Peter Paul
went walking—er—once too often?"
Judge Ackroyd took one step forward. Average
Jones was on his feet instantly, and, even in her
alarm, Sylvia Graham noticed how swiftly and
naturally his whole form "set." But the big man
turned away, and abruptly left the room.
"Were you wise to anger him?" asked the girl, as
the heavy tread died away on the stairs.
"Sometimes open declaration of war is the sound-
est strategy."
"War?" she repeated. "You make me feel like a
traitor to my own family."
"That's the unfortunate part of it," he said; "but
it can't be helped."
"You spoke of having some one guard the corners
of the block," continued the girl, after a thoughtful
silence. "Do you think I'd better arrange for that?"
"No need. There'll be a hundred people on
ivatch."
"Have you called out the militia?" she asked,
twinkling.
"Better than that. I've employed the tools of my
trade."
He handed her a galley proof marked with many
corrections. She ran through it with growing amaze-
ment.


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 331
HAVE YOU SEEN THE DOG?
$100—One Hundred Dollars-$100
FOR THE BEST ANSWER IN 500 WORDS
OPEN TO ALL HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
Between now and next Saturday an old Pug
Dog will come out of a big House on West 16th
Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues. It may
be by Day. It may be any hour of the Night.
Now, you Boys, get to work.
REMEMBER: $100 IN CASH
HERE ARE THE POINTS TO MIND—
I—Description of Dog.
2—Description of Person with him.
3—Description of House he Comes from.
4—Account of Where they Go.
5—Account of What they Do.
Manuscripts must be written plainly and
mailed within twenty-four hours of the dis-
covery of the dog to
A. JONES: AD-VISOR,
ASTOR COURT TEMPLE, NEW YORK
"That will appear in every New York paper to-
morrow morning," explained its deviser.
"I see," said the girl. "Any one who attempts to
take Peter Paul away will be tracked by a band of
boy detectives. A stroke of genius, Mr. Average
Jones."


332 AVERAGE JONES
She curtsied low to him. But Average Jones was
in no mood for playfulness now.
"That restricts the judge's endeavors to the house
and garden," said he, "since, of course he'll see the
advertisement."
"I'll see that he does," said Miss Graham ma-
liciously.
"Good! I'll also ask you to watch the garden for
any suspicious excavating."
"Very well. But is that all?" Miss Graham's
voice was wistful.
"Isn't it enough?"
"You've been so good to me," she said hesitantly.
"I don't like to think of you as setting those boys
to an impossible task."
"Oh, bless you!" returned the Ad-Visor heartily;
"that's all arranged for. One of my men will duly
parade with a canine especially obtained for the oc-
casion. I'm not going to swindle the youngsters."
"It didn't seem like you," returned Miss Graham
warmly. "But you must let me pay for it, that and
the advertising bill."
"As an unauthorized expense—" he began.
She laid a small, persuasive hand on his arm.
"You must let me pay it. Won't you?"
Average Jones was conscious of a strange sensa-
tion, starting from the point where the firm, little



336 AVERAGE JONES
left in every room in the house, if possible, except
on your floor, which is probably out of the reckon-
ing. Do you think you could manage it soon?"
"I think so. I'll try."
"Do most of the rooms open into one another?"
"Yes, all through the house."
"Please see that they're all unlocked, and as far
as possible, open. I'll be here at four o'clock, and
will call for Judge Ackroyd. You must be sure that
he receives me. Tell him it is a matter of great im-
portance. It is."
"You're putting a fearful strain on my feminine
curiosity," said Miss Graham, the provocative smile
quirking at the corners of her mouth.
V "Doubtless," returned the other dryly. "If you
strictly follow directions, I'll undertake to satisfy
it in time. Four o'clock sharp, I'll be here. Don't
be frightened whatever happens. You keep ready,
but out of the way, until I call you. Good-by."
With even more than his usual nicety was Aver-
age Jones attired, when, at four o'clock, he sent his
card to Judge Ackroyd. Small favor, however, did
his appearance find, in the scowling eyes of the
judge.
"What do you want?" he growled.
"I'll take a cigar, thank you very much," said
Average Jones innocently.
"You'll take your leave, or state your business."


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 337
"It has to do with your niece."
"Then what do you take my time for, damn your
impudence?"
"Don't swear." Average Jones was deliberately
provoking the older man to an outbreak. "Let's—
er—sit down and—er—be chatty."
The drawl, actually an evidence of excitement,
had all the effect of studied insolence. Judge Ack-
royd's big frame shook.
"I'm going to k-k-kick you out into the street,
you young p-p-p-pup," he stuttered in his rage.
His knotted fingers writhed out for a hold on the
other's collar. With a sinuous movement, the visitor
swerved aside and struck the other man, flat-handed,
across the face. There was an answering howl of
demoniac fury. Then a strange thing happened. The
assailant turned and fled, not to the ready egress of
the front door, but down the dark stairway to the
basement. The judge thundered after, in maddened,
unthinking pursuit. Average Jones ran fleetly and
easily. And his running was not for the purpose of
flight alone, for as he sped through the basement
rooms, he kept casting swift glances from side to
side, and up and down the walls. The heavy-
weight pursuer could not get nearer than half-a-
dozen paces.
From the kitchen Average Jones burst into the
hallway, doubled back up the stairs and made a tour


338 AVERAGE JONES
of the big drawing-rooms and living-rooms of the
first floor. Here, too, his glance swept room after
room, from floor to ceiling. The chase then led up-
ward to the second floor, and by direct ascent to the
third. Breathing heavily, Judge Ackroyd lumbered
after the more active man. In his dogged rage, he
never thought to stop and block the hall-way; but
trailed his quarry like a bloodhound through every
room of the third floor, and upward to the fourth.
Half-way up this stairway, Average Jones checked
his speed and surveyed the hall above. As he started
again he stumbled and sprawled. A more compe-
tent observer than the infuriated pursuer might have
noticed that he fell cunningly. But Judge Ackroyd
gave a shout of savage triumph and increased his
speed. He stretched his hand to grip the fugitive.
It had almost touched him when he leaped to his feet
and resumed his flight.
"I'll get you now!" panted the judge.
The fourth floor of the old house was almost bare.
In a hall-embrasure hung a full-length mirror. All
along the borders of this, Average Jones' quick-
ranging vision had discerned small red-banded ob-
jects which moved and shifted. As the glass reflected
his extended figure, it showed, almost at the same
instant, the outstretched, bony hand of "Oily" Ack-
royd. With a snarl, half rage, half satisfaction, the
pursuer hurled himself forward—and fell, with a


THE MILLION-DOLLAR DOG 339
plunge that rattled the house's old bones. For, as he
reached, Jones, trained on many a foot-ball field,
had whirled and dived at his knees. Before the fallen
man could gather his shaken wits, he was pinned
with the most disabling grip known in the science of
combat, a strangle-hold with the assailant's wrist
clamped in below and behind the ear. Average Jones
lifted his voice and the name that came to his lips
was the name that had lurked subconsciously, in
his heart, for days.
"Sylvia!" he cried. "The fourth floor! Come!"
There was a stir and a cry from two floors be-
low. Sylvia Graham had broken from the grasp of
her terrified aunt, and now came up the sharp ascent
like a deer, her eyes blazing with resolve and
courage.
"The mirror," said Average Jones. "Push it aside.
Pull it down. Get behind it somehow. Lie quiet,
Ackroyd or I'll have to choke your worthless head
off!"
With an effort of nervous strength, the girl lifted
aside the big glass. Behind it a hundred scarlet-
banded insects swarmed and scampered.
"It's a panel. Open it."
She tugged at the woodwork with quick, clever
fingers. A section loosened and fell outward with
a bang. The red-and-black beetles fled in all direc-
tions. And now, Judge Ackroyd found his voice.


344 AVERAGE JONES
Average Jones mentioned a destination for Ram-
son's beetles deeper than they had ever digged for
prey.
"Yes, sir," assented Simpson. "But if I might
suggest, there's a very interesting advertisement in
yesterday's paper repeated this morn—"
"I don't want to see it."
"No, sir. But—but still—it—it seems to have a
strange reference to the burial of the million-dollar
dog, and an invitation that I thought—"
"Where is it? Give it to me!" For once in his
life, high pressure of excitement had blotted out Av-
erage Jones' drawl. His employee thrust into his
hand this announcement from the Banner of that
morning:
DIED—At ioo West 16th Street, Sept. 14, Peter
Paul, a dog, for many years the faithful and fond
companion of the late Amelia Van Haltern. Burial in
accordance with the wish and will of Mrs. Van Hal-
tern, at the family estate, Schuylkill, Sept. 17, at 3
o'clock. His friend, Don Quixote, is especially bid-
den to come, if he will.
Average Jones leaped to his feet. "My parable,"
he cried. "Don Quixote and the damsel in distress.
Where's my hat? Where's the time-table? Get a
cab! Simpson, you idiot, why didn't you make me
read this befpre, confound you! I mean God bless
you. Your salary's doubled from to-day. I'm off."
"Yes, sir," said the bewildered Simpson, "but
about Ramson's beetles?"






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