"You don't say," returned Wilkinson. "I never would have thought it--and a ball through there would do the trick?" "Man or beast--he'd never know what struck him." And then as Wilkinson removed his arm, the doctor sprang forward in alarm, and added: "Why, look, here, Mr. Wilkinson, you've smeared a lot of ink up there!" "Where?" "On your temple. Your finger must have dipped into the inkwell...." Wilkinson looked at his finger with a grimace, then he looked at the surface of the table upon which was a round, wet splotch of ink. Upon the end of his finger, which evidently had rested for an instant upon the spot on the table, was a similar splotch; and when Wetherell had jammed the finger into his temple, it being still moist with the dusky fluid, it had left a small round spot on his forehead. With a hasty movement Wilkinson drew forth his handkerchief and started it on the way to his head. "Hold on!" he suddenly exclaimed. "I'll get my kerchief stained, too. I'll go to the bathroom and wash it off, if you'll excuse me." Wilkinson rose, but some sudden tremour seemed to seize him. "Nerves a bit shaky yet, Doc," he complained. And, turning, walked through an open window. Behind the palms his daughter Leslie was reading a book; she had heard scraps of the conversation without, and glanced up at him questioningly. "Trying to find out just where to shoot old Tigerskin," he stopped to explain, "and got myself all ink." Leslie laughed, and he continued his way through the room and up one flight of stairs to the bathroom. "A bull's-eye--a perfect bull's-eye that," he whispered to himself, looking in the glass. Then suddenly whipping out of his hip-pocket a revolver, he aimed for the small, black spot upon his forehead. Parker Wetherell, M. D., down on the veranda, having taken from his waistcoat-pocket Leslie's check, was glancing on it with reverence; but soon the reverie into which he had plunged was rudely interrupted: a pistol shot rang out, followed almost instantly by a woman's scream. Wetherell leaped to his feet. "He tricked me," he whispered, turning pale, "the painless method was for himself, not for Tigerskin." With an answering shout he ran pell-mell up the stairs. In the bathroom he found three people: Hawkins, Wilkinson's new valet, Leslie and Wilkinson, the latter swaying to and fro in the grasp of the other two. In his hand he held a smoking revolver; and as the doctor seized him, he smiled a ghastly smile and exclaimed: "I missed it, Doc! Missed!... My little painless program didn't pull through!" That night all Morris County, all New York, had the news, specials having been gotten out by the various papers to that effect. "It's up to you, Hawkins," said the District Attorney over the wire to Wilkinson's new valet; "we've got to have this man alive, and not dead. You've got to be Johnny-on-the-spot every minute of the time."