Now for a good think on love, murder, political economy and fish. No sleep for me--just a good, long think, with breakfast at 6 A. M., with the correct solution as snugly stored in my mind as ten cents in a dime. First, I knew nothing about the Brownings and cared less. They didn't figure in my plans at all. My purpose was to startle Pa Tescheron into a full knowledge of his lunacy, and command his appreciation of his future son-in-law. As I was about to plunge deeper into my cogitations, I picked up a card from the table and read it. It chilled me some, but only for a minute. It ran like this: PATRICK K. COLLINS, UNDERTAKER AND EMBALMER, 9 West Tenth Street, New York. _Cremations a Specialty._ I had heard of that fellow Collins, a notorious man in his line. His specialty, cremations, removed all possibility of pathological or toxicological investigation weeks afterward, when public suspicion became aroused. The political coroners were supposed to be partners of his in crime, and the police had tracked many a case through his establishment to the retorts at the Fresh Pond crematory, where nothing but a few handfuls of ashes remained. Was there to be a cremation in the Browning case? Of course, I asked myself that question, and I also wondered why the sleuths of Smith's had not reported the fact, if it were a fact, to the hotel headquarters. If they knew it, then my telegram to Mr. Tescheron about Coroner Flanagan telephoning to all the cemeteries and his further purposes need not cause alarm. Perhaps he would laugh when he received it. The card had been placed there during my absence. Jim would tell me about it in the morning, so I gave the matter no further consideration. By that time, 12 o'clock, the detectives must have had Tescheron talked tired, I guessed, and he was probably at home trying to figure how he might escape the coroner's ordeal of publicity on the morrow, unless, of course, they knew this man cremated his victims right after the service. It so happened that the detectives had him fairly crazy. When he read my message he was completely daft. Instead of working out my plans carefully, so as to achieve a complete fourth-act reconciliation by 6 o'clock, I spent the night answering and sending messages like a general looking through a telescope on a hill-top. The first lad in blue uniform came just about midnight and scared me a little, but as Jim was not disturbed, all was well. It seems that instead of going to bed, Pa Tescheron took a new start as soon as he read my message about notifying the coroner. Smith was called again to meet him at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, about fifteen minutes by messenger boy from my headquarters. Here is the first message from General Tescheron: