“Brought face to face with these two almost equally disagreeable alternatives,” continued Kearns, “he sent for me. Investigation quickly showed me that all the letters had been mailed within a certain radius in the city. I caused such action to be taken by the ancestor of Baron Gold as was likely to lead to an early reply from the unknown letter writer. Then I proceeded to throw out my net. I caused every drop box in the post offices and every pillar box in the streets within the suspected district to be watched by two persons--the one an employe of the Post Office, the other one of my men. The moment a letter was dropped, the Post Office employe would proceed to examine the address on such letter. If it was not addressed to the threatened person, a rubber band was twisted over the envelope to distinguish it from anything dropped later. In this way the Post Office man was readily enabled to distinguish all the examined letters from the latest one dropped. “This method,” pursued Kearns, “was continued systematically for a day and a night without yielding any result. On the afternoon of the second day, however, a man approached a letter box in one of the side streets, deposited a letter and hastily walked away. The Post Office employe stepped to the box, opened it as usual and--up went his hand above his head. This was the agreed signal. In an instant my man was after the depositor of the letter and had him in custody. He was brought before me and the letter, opened in his presence by--ah--the ancestor of Baron Gold, contained conclusive proof of his guilt. The man turned out to be a monomaniac, hence his peculiar cunning and the difficulty experienced in catching him in any of the ordinary traps usually laid in such cases. But, you see, after all, the case was simple enough.” “It was highly ingenious,” decided the King. “It is recorded also that out of a band of men you picked a murderer by an examination of the hands of these men. Is this so?” “Yes, Sire,” answered Kearns; “that’s quite correct. The case was a more difficult one. The circumstances were somewhat repellant.” “Nevertheless, we would learn them,” said the King.