“Nonsense,” I said, as easily as I could. Hotchkiss had gone to the window. “She was excited. There are no ‘reasons,’ whatever she means.” Richey put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ve been together too long to let any ‘reasons’ or ‘unreasons’ come between us, old man,” he said, not very steadily. Hotchkiss, who had been silent, here came forward in his most impressive manner. He put his hands under his coat-tails and coughed. “Mr. Blakeley,” he began, “by Mr. McKnight’s advice we have arranged a little interview here to-night. If all has gone as I planned, Mr. Henry Pinckney Sullivan is by this time under arrest. Within a very few minutes—he will be here.” “I wanted to talk to him before he was locked up,” Richey explained. “He’s clever enough to be worth knowing, and, besides, I’m not so cocksure of his guilt as our friend the Patch on the Seat of Government. No murderer worthy of the name needs six different motives for the same crime, beginning with robbery, and ending with an unpleasant father-in-law.” We were all silent for a while. McKnight stationed himself at a window, and Hotchkiss paced the floor expectantly. “It’s a great day for modern detective methods,” he chirruped. “While the police have been guarding houses and standing with their mouths open waiting for clues to fall in and choke them, we have pieced together, bit by bit, a fabric—” The door-bell rang, followed immediately by sounds of footsteps in the hall. McKnight threw the door open, and Hotchkiss, raised on his toes, flung out his arm in a gesture of superb eloquence. “Behold—your man!” he declaimed. Through the open doorway came a tall, blond fellow, clad in light gray, wearing tan shoes, and followed closely by an officer. “I brought him here as you suggested, Mr. McKnight,” said the constable. But McKnight was doubled over the library table in silent convulsions of mirth, and I was almost as bad. Little Hotchkiss stood up, his important attitude finally changing to one of chagrin, while the blond man ceased to look angry, and became sheepish. It was Stuart, our confidential clerk for the last half dozen years! McKnight sat up and wiped his eyes. “Stuart,” he said sternly, “there are two very serious things we have learned about you. First, you jab your scarf pins into your cushion with your left hand, which is most reprehensible; second, you wear—er—night-shirts, instead of pajamas. Worse than that, perhaps, we find that one of them has a buttonhole torn out at the neck.” Stuart was bewildered. He looked from McKnight to me, and then at the crestfallen Hotchkiss. “I haven’t any idea what it’s all about,” he said. “I was arrested as I reached my boarding-house to-night, after the theater, and brought directly here. I told the officer it was a mistake.” Poor Hotchkiss tried bravely to justify the fiasco. “You can not deny,” he contended, “that Mr. Andrew Bronson followed you to your rooms last Monday evening.” Stuart looked at us and flushed.