One day a countryman appeared at Police Headquarters in Chicago and announced that he had been robbed of $20,000, and showed how his coat pocket had been cut open and the money taken. This, he explained, had been done in a crowd. It was a strange place for a man to carry so large a sum, and, still stranger, the pocket was cut on the inside. Of course, a pickpocket in the rare event of cutting the pocket of an intended victim must of necessity cut the pocket from the outside. The countryman had fallen at Headquarters to the tender mercies of the two partners of Turtle. One glance at the pocket showed them there was a colored gentleman in the woodpile, and as there was $20,000 in the deal somewhere, they determined to have some share of it. They, of course, pretended to believe the story of the countryman, but for fear some of the other Headquarters men might hear and want a share, they hurried him away from the office over to the Sherman House; then one went to Turtle's office and posted him on the situation. The countryman was anxious to leave town, but on various pretenses they held him for two days, but as he stoutly affirmed that the lost money was his own they were puzzled to solve the mystery; but their knowledge of human nature was such that they felt certain that if they could only arrive at the bottom the old gentleman would not be quite as white as he pretended to be. He came from an obscure mountain town in East Tennessee, and while they fancied a trip there might solve matters they feared to lose their victim--for victim these human tigers determined the countryman should be. The second day they resolved on decisive measures to get at the truth, and at the same time secure some plunder, provided the Tennesseean had any cash.