Lanagan seldom went back on a “hunch.” At first flash he had declared the Watsons innocent. He was not yet ready to abandon that; and yet the circumstances were certainly trending toward them. “But,” he concluded, “there’s a nigger in this woodpile somewhere that I haven’t located.” The cottage had nothing to offer. Police, curio hunters, and shoals of newspaper men had combed it Lanagan hurried to the Oakland police headquarters and cocked his feet on Inspector Henley’s desk while that astute individual detailed to him the various steps taken by the police in fixing the crime on Watson. Lanagan was nettled. It sounded highly convincing. “You’re sure of Watson?” he finally asked, quizzically, helping himself to a fist-full of Henley’s cigars. “Clearest case I have ever handled,” said Henley, moving the cigar box out of reach. “Every link is complete. Further: the woman is in on it and we’ll have her within twenty-four hours. We’ll get the case before Baxter and they’ll swing inside of three months.” “Well,” drawled Lanagan, “you’re wrong again, Henley.” The inspector flushed. He had a lively recollection of how Lanagan had “trimmed” him on the Stockslager murder and he didn’t take kindly to the “again.” “We’ve got the motive, the property; and the means, the hammer. What more do you want?” “Well, to complete the alliteration, I suppose you want the murderer,” said Lanagan with a faint laugh. “And you haven’t got him. Pretty good smokes. Just slip back that box. I don’t get over your way very often. You act as though you had paid for those cigars yourself. Can I see Watson?” “No,” said Henley, surlily. He never cared to argue the little matters such as Lanagan was fond of nagging him with; some way he had a feeling that Lanagan always knew just a trifle more than he told. He passed back the box. “But it’s an even break. Nobody’s seen him. Here’s his picture.” Lanagan studied the front and profile of a young man of twenty-six, a face of surprising frankness and honesty. Every line held to Lanagan’s critical eye the lie to the number striped across his breast; another feature of our brilliant American police system that puts the rogue’s gallery blazon on a man before he is tried. As Lanagan passed out, his eye fell on the bulletin board in the detectives’ room. The last discharge slip from San Quentin was pasted upon it, the slip by which all police stations are supposed to keep in touch with prisoners discharged during the past month. But through long familiarity few of the detectives stop to read carefully. More from habit than anything else, Lanagan read those sheets as a preacher reads the book--he scanned it.