The early summer of nineteen hundred found the sanatorium fairly well filled with guests, not the least notable among whom was Mr. Thomas Kearns, the widely-famed head of New York’s Secret Service Bureau, who had selected this quiet retreat at which to build up his magnificent muscular development and repair the ravages upon his general system incurred by his exciting and somewhat irregular mode of life in the city. To describe Mr. Kearns as widely famed was certainly not overstating the case, for he was conceded to be the ablest detector of crime in the country. So many were the great mysteries which he had unraveled and with so many important cases had he been connected that his fame had stretched far and wide, extending beyond the confines of the United States and reaching into foreign lands. In a word, his reputation was international and his achievements had been lauded in many countries and in many tongues. His fellow-townsmen of the great metropolis--in fact, his countrymen at large--were proud of Thomas Kearns. When Americans traveling abroad heard of some mystery which the secret police of European capitals were unable to solve, they were wont to smile in a superior way and exclaim: “They ought to send for Kearns over here--our Kearns. He would show them what’s what!” Everybody from the doorman at Police Headquarters to the Police Commissioners and the heads of the city government treated Mr. Kearns with distinguished consideration; he was regarded as one of the Institutions of the city. No one ever dreamed of interfering with Mr. Kearns. And well he justified this trust. Under his administration the criminal classes were kept in a subjection and awe which rendered life and property more secure in New York than in any other great city of the world. No criminal from other cities dared seek abode in the metropolis without first reporting to Mr. Kearns as to his advent, his place of domicile, the causes of his visit, and the duration of his stay, and no man of criminal record might, under any circumstances, by day or by night, venture to put foot south of Fulton Street, into the great financial centres where the heaped-up wealth of the city was stored. Possessed of ample means, no breath of suspicion had ever touched Mr. Kearns. The vicissitudes of his calling had enabled him upon many occasions to be of inestimable service to various financial powers, and these powers had gladly placed at his disposal information which had enabled him to build up a handsome private fortune. He was a man of some forty years, of medium height and well-rounded figure, with blue eyes, a ruddy complexion and the general appearance of a prosperous merchant; but the blue eyes had a very keen look at times and the lips a peculiar way of pursing themselves under the heavy, well-kept brown moustache.