The Stockslager case will be recalled immediately upon the Pacific Coast as a crime of some years ago marked by the peculiar atrocity of the circumstances. Aged Mrs. Stockslager, living in a small cottage at the extreme northern end of Thirty-third Avenue--in those days a region sparsely settled and visited chiefly by picknickers bound for Baker’s Beach--was found one Sunday morning literally hacked to pieces. From the location of portions of the dismembered body it was apparent that the author had planned to carry the evidences of the crime away and sink them in the waters of the ocean, which tumbled and rolled on the rocks at the base of the steep cliff that marked the extremity of Thirty-third Avenue. A potato sack, with the torso, was found near the rear door to the cottage, indicating that whoever had committed the deed had probably been interrupted while carrying the remains to the bay; and had then fled. A kitchen butcher knife was the weapon used. Robbery was evidently the motive, for the hut had been ransacked thoroughly, such poor and mean trinkets as the recluse was known to possess having been taken. Mrs. Stockslager did a small business in sandwiches, pop corn and soda water with the picknickers. The rumours of a miser’s hoard that usually attached to such as she had long been current. But whether the slayer or slayers realised a profit in money could not be determined as there was no one who could be found sufficiently familiar with her life to say whether she did or did not have a store of money on the premises. Such were the general facts which Sampson, city editor of the _Enquirer_, skeletonised tersely to Lanagan as that police reporter of superior talents reported for duty after a lapse of more than ordinary duration. “Hop to it, Jack,” added Sampson. “You’ve had your salary for two weeks. Show your appreciation.” Those were the days before automobiles might be requisitioned--occasionally--for big assignments, and Lanagan, taking the steam line that in those days twisted around the ocean shore, was considerably later than the coroner’s deputies, who had already discharged their functions and now were engaged in making an impromptu meal upon the old woman’s supply of sandwiches, the only loot available. Phillips and Castle, special duty men from the Golden Gate Park police station, were also on the scene. The “upper office” at headquarters is recruited--where it is not recruited by politics or favouritism--by these active young officers on special duty at the outside stations, and Lanagan knew that this particular brace of plain-clothes men were hardworking and ambitious and without the “strings” that many times bring the ablest of upper office men a trifle too considerately into touch with the outlaw clans. “What do you make of it, Phillips?” asked Lanagan, as the officer placed his note-book in his pocket. “Wouldn’t call it a suicide, exactly,” replied Phillips, offishly.