"Do I understand that Huddesley has got himself in trouble owing someone?" asked Doctor Vardaman, finding the situation somewhat illuminated. "It appears to me, Mr.--er"--he glanced again at the card--"Mr. Hopple, it appears to me that your methods of collecting are unduly--shall I say vigorous? To rout people out at this hour--I've no doubt the man would have paid you without all this to-do. What is the amount, if I may----" "Say, ain't you barking up the wrong tree?" interrupted the other, eying him in perplexity. "Or--here--say, that's funny, I give you the wrong card. Excuse _me_, Doc., my mistake. That's a man's business-card I met in the smoker coming from N'Yawk. This is _me_. Just read that, will you? It's all square, Doc., I've got a reference--and Judd here's from your own p'lice headquarters anyhow." Again the doctor applied himself to a card and found thereon the following legend: WILLIAM O. GRIMM. Paterson Detective Bureau. "We never sleep." It was hardly reassuring, in spite of the last statement; but before Doctor Vardaman had sufficiently collected himself to ask for further enlightenment, the policeman appeared in the doorway. "Why--er--say," he remarked, "there's a party in a hack outside here wants to know the way to Colonel Pallinder's. I told him that there big house standin' back with them big pillows up the front, ain't that right?" "That's the place," said the doctor, half-listening. "An' why--er--say, he said he see by the papers they was a party at Colonel Pallinder's to-night and do you guess they've gone to bed yet, becos he's met a lot o' kerridges comin' away from this di-rection like it was over, an' he'd like to get there, becos he's gotta hump, he says." "Blamed if that ain't Hopple!" exclaimed the detective, in admiring wonder. "Well, don't that beat the Dutch!" "They ain't but that one Pallinder in town, is there?" asked the policeman. "He says if they's anybody up yet, he's going to hump right along and ketch 'em." "Somebody may not have gone to bed yet," said the doctor, sparing a moment from his own muddled affairs to wonder what this late arrival, and energy of pursuit might mean. "In fact it seems my man Huddesley has not got back from there yet. Tell him to drive straight on and turn to the right at the gate. Did you say you were looking for Huddesley, Mr. Grimm? What for?" "Why, for a number o' things, Doc., bustin' up a safe at the Farmers' an' Traders' Bank o' Sharontown, Missouri, an' makin' a get-away with the specie, thirty-two hundred dollars in coin an' greenbacks, for one thing. That was in July, 1881. If he's the man I'm looking for, his name's Tuttle, or Cohen, or Jimmy the Toff--he goes by all of 'em--and he's wanted in Boston besides for a jewelry-shop job last year."