Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. THE EAR IN THE WALL BY ARTHUR B. REEVE FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE VANISHER II THE BLACK BOOK III THE SAFE ROBBERY IV THE ANONYMOUS LETTER V THE SUFFRAGETTE SECRETARY VI THE WOMAN DETECTIVE VII THE GANG LEADER VIII THE SHYSTER LAWYER IX THE JURY FIXER X THE AFTERNOON DANCE XI THE TYPEWRITER CLUE XII THE "PORTRAIT PARLE" XIII THE CONVICTION XIV THE BEAUTY PARLOUR XV THE PHANTOM CIRCUIT XVI THE SANITARIUM XVII THE SOCIETY SCANDAL XVIII THE WALL STREET WOLF XIX THE ESCAPE XX THE METRIC PHOTOGRAPH XXI THE MORGUE XXII THE CANARD XXIII THE CONFESSION XXIV THE DEBACLE OF DORGAN XXV THE BLOOD CRYSTALS XXVI THE WHITE SLAVE XXVII THE ELECTION NIGHT I THE VANISHER "Hello, Jameson, is Kennedy in?" I glanced up from the evening papers to encounter the square-jawed, alert face of District Attorney Carton in the doorway of our apartment. "How do you do, Judge?" I exclaimed. "No, but I expect him any second now. Won't you sit down?" The District Attorney dropped, rather wearily I thought, into a chair and looked at his watch. I had made Carton's acquaintance some years before as a cub reporter on the Star while he was a judge of an inferior court. Our acquaintance had grown through several political campaigns in which I had had assignments that brought me into contact with him. More recently some special writing had led me across his trail again in telling the story of his clean-up of graft in the city. At present his weariness was easily accounted for. He was in the midst of the fight of his life for re-election against the so-called "System," headed by Boss Dorgan, in which he had gone far in exposing evils that ranged all the way from vice and the drug traffic to bald election frauds. "I expect a Mrs. Blackwell here in a few minutes," he remarked, glancing again at his watch. His eye caught the headline of the news story I had been reading and he added quickly, "What do the boys on the Star think of that Blackwell case, anyhow?"