El Gatos, November 1. The decapitated body of a man tentatively identified as J. Peter Peck, address unknown, was discovered by a company track walker early this morning on the South West Pacific grade crossing half a mile south of the town of El Gatos. Local police believe that the man was killed some time after midnight, possibly by the San Francisco milk train. Identification was established by a wallet containing papers of the deceased. Ward laid the clipping on his desk, rolled a bulbous wad of chewing tobacco into one cheek and expelled it into a spitoon some ten feet away with a resounding plunk. Wiping his chin inexpertly with the back of a grizzled hand, he looked up and eyed his visitor interrogatively. "I clipped it from last night's _San Francisco Bulletin_," the latter explained quietly. "I drove practically all night so as to be here this morning." "You're a relative?" The stranger smiled weakly and placed a pair of painfully thin hands on the desk as though to steady himself. "Well, no, not exactly; that is, somewhat," he answered obscurely. Charlie Ward eyed the little man curiously. "Come again, please?" "Well, it's this way," slipping nervously to the very edge of a convenient chair. "There appears to have been a slight error made. The clipping is somewhat inaccurate." "Sure. Half the stuff you see in the papers these days is cockeyed. Them guys never get anything straight. I always tell my wife you gotta believe only ten per cent of what you read and doubt that." The stranger smiled thinly. "Precisely. Now the real truth of the matter in this particular case is that _I_ happen to be J. Peter Peck and, to the best of my knowledge, I'm not dead. In fact I'd take issue with anyone who questioned the fact. I therefore feel that the report has been exaggerated; just a tiny bit, at least." He paused for breath. "I thought you'd like to know." Ward arched his brows and smiled calmly. As a veteran police officer, he was used to surprises. "Well, now that's one for the book, ain't it?" "Rather." "So, if you're the guy that's supposed to be downstairs on ice," Ward supplemented, fumbling in a drawer of his desk, "how come we find this here wallet with your name all over the papers inside on him?" Mr. Peck glanced at the wallet. "Very easily explained," he answered. "I was held up last Monday evening in San Francisco. The wallet and the papers it contains were among the things taken from me. Incidentally, there were several thousands of dollars in the wallet when I last saw it." Ward whistled softly. "How much?" "About twenty-four hundred dollars." "That's a lot of dollars." "It would keep a man in cigars for a day or two." "And this guy, after he stuck you up," Ward reasoned, "left Frisco and come North where he had the bad luck to meet with an accident." "Precisely." "What'd he look like?"