T

HE B. D. AGENCY, having its apartments s on the sixth floor of the new terra cotta Sleuth's Building on Tremont street, I took the express elevator as I sought my private office.

"It's the strangest case of the kind since the disappearance of little Charlie Ross," was the remark I overheard as I passed through Watson's sanctum to my own room adjoining. Watson, the Chief, was addressing Dusenberry, "First Sergeant," as he styled himself. The appellation would have fitted admirably had this been regularly organized police force instead of a detective agency-the strongest in Bos

ton.

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The force of the Bloodhound Detective Agency was a small one. The O. M., having been with Pinkerton successfully for fifteen years, had butted into the Boston underground, and with the co-operation of Watson and Dusenberry, whom he had imported, one from Scotland Yard over the pond, and the other from New York, had achieved a meteor-like success in twenty-four short months. I, an erstwhile newspaper reporter, had joined the Bloodhound aggregation through a strong pull, achieved at a mightily forbidding angle, but achieved nevertheless. But as there were vexing conditions annexed to my acceptance, and as I was doing probation on "space," so to speak, I had relished a surfeit of idle time.

Lack of something to do for several weeks had rendered me so morbidly listless that my father came finally to the rescue and delegated to my care some unimportant business matters in the Southwest, and it was on the day of the opening of my story that I returned to Boston after a six weeks' absence in Kansas.

Arranging the small business that I found awaiting me on my desk, I re-entered the office where sat my two superiors.

Both greeted me cordially. (I really believe they did not see me first enter, for they were deeply engrossed with some matter in hand.)

"Sherlock," said Watson-my chief had dubbed me famously-"we have a good case for you

"Stay," exclaimed Dusenberry, "have you seen the morning papers?" He was speaking to me.

"No," said I. "But an hour ago I left my berth at the depot and have not had breakfast even."

Watson consulted his watch. "H'mnine-thirty. Rather irregular habits, my boy. But to business now. What do you think of the Braley case?"

"New one on me," I rejoined. "Murder ?"

"Child missing."

"And you want me to find it?" I inquired, eagerly.

"No, sir; the Old Man has just wired that he will handle this himself, as it has unique circumstances. He'll be back from Chicago in a few days, and in the meantime wants us to feel the local pulse and keep him informed of developments; says the child'll not be found before he gets around."

My instructions were despairingly simple, and, as I thought, crude. I was to leave that day for a small New Hampshire town, keep my eyes open, and implicitly deny myself the reading of a single word in newspaper or magazine print.

I set forth on an early afternoon train for Canaan, New Hampshire.

As I left the train at my destination that evening, shortly after dusk, two things happened. First, I was just tearing open a telegram which I found awaiting me, when, second, a voice from behind on the station platform hissed inquiringly:

"Bloodhound?"

I wheeled and stood face to face with an old-time chum on the staff of the News. "Why, Charlie, old boy, what are you up to ?"

"Evening Post," said he, "and it's just great. Strangest case I ever heard of. In the first place

"Hold on," I interrupted, "none of that. I am here to learn the truth, get the facts, and, incidentally, get them from their source." I strode away and left him gazing after me in bewildered amazement.

The town fairly swarmed with excitement. Small, typically New England, the burg had nevertheless suddenly taken on the garb of unwonted activity. I had gone immediately to my hotel-the only one in the place that night, and on emerging next morning, recognized three Pinkerton men, eight newspaper reporters, and a small mob of free lances as well as the usual contingent of morbidly curious. But the real center of excitement was the farm house where the tragedy was supposed to have occurred. It lay three miles out from the village, in a direction of north and east from Canaan. I found myself at this farm house early in the afternoon, and upon inquiry learned these facts.

Little Edwin Braley had disappeared. He was about four years old, lived with his father and mother on this farm, which they rented from a man by another name, and was, rumor had it, a much-abused child. The parents were poor. The child was undoubtedly neglected, often received a brutal beating, and, unfortunately, had the proclivity to wander. Neighbors were often honored by his visitations, and swamps were occasionally searched for him.

As a development and outgrowth, the child really disappeared. It was at about eight o'clock of the tragic morning that a school teacher passing by with her brother, on her way to her usual daily duties, saw the youngster at play in his own front yard. In his hand was a certain stick, memorable to identity a little later, for within two days this stick was found by a reporter midway in a swamp across the road, one-half mile away and to the east. (Points of compass were extremely important in the Braley case.)

The unique feature of the case was that the child could not be found. Granted

that all "cases" therefore must be likewise "unique," still not all children lost from indigent and obscure parents could boast of an espionage comprising eight Boston reporters, one from New York and two from Chicago; a small army of professional detectives, flanked by self-appointed amateur sleuths, private citizens, farmers, et al.

The day after my arrival upon the field of action, a town warrant was issued, three hundred and twenty-five citizens armed themselves with weapons and flambeaux, and spent five days and nights doing nothing but searching fields and woods and valleys for the "Missing Braley child." Again and again was the searching party re-organized; often they got some trace of the little one, but ever elusive were the signs.

The first day, I received this wire from the Old Man:

"I am following this closely. Cannot be with you yet. My opinion is you'd better station yourself one spot on farm and remain several days."

And it was this very thing that I was doing. For four days now I had sat upon a broad, hot doorstone of this suspected farm house, and used only my eyes and ears. It was this specific instruction from my superior that was to win for us the fame of solving the Braley mystery and locating the child.

There were exciting developments and discoveries each succeeding day. My newspaper chum, Charlie, kept me thoroughly informed, and talked the situation over with me once a day as he made his rounds. Through him I learned that two Chicago papers were featuring the case, a New York sheet had one-half page daily, while Boston could talk of nothing else.

The compass of my observations was pitifully meagre. But I am convinced that psychology plays a more important part in the sleuth's profession than any other element or factor. This was my outlook: Behind me a small, white farm house, set on a bare knoll of yellow sand, treeless and hot; adjacent to it a typical wood-colored, dilapidated barn constructed principally of cracks; a hen-house, a wallowy barnyard and some unimportant outbuildings. To the west and on my left ran the highway, bush-enshrouded, and

backed by an extensive mass of hardwood undergrowth, forming the horizon line. It was in this swamp that the child's little switch was found.

After five days of fruitless search, the theory of child "missing" gave way to accusations of foul play. Women's footprints were found on the muddy shores of a nearby pond; bloodstains were discovcovered within the box beneath a buckboard seat; small burned bones were located in an ash barrel in the barn; and violent threats of the father were recalled by excitable neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. Braley were arrested. This was good for three columns; then the reporters were recalled-after having been out eight days; and when private and professional detectives had all departed, with the exception of one, the community took on again the normal aspects of a country town.

I stayed. There was my tent, in a vacant lot not six rods away, and in it supplies to last two weeks. I had this one mental refreshment and solace-I had not yet been ordered home.

I cherished three thoughts. First, the Braleys possessed no horse. They had owned one three days previous to the disappearance of their four-year-old sonthat fact I had established beyond refutation, but I could find no account of its sale or evidence of its having been driven off the place. But all this had excited no attention whatever in the general upheaval of circumstances. Second, Braley senior had possessed a revolver two weeks prior to the day of the alleged tragedy, though he stoutly denied having had such a weapon since he had leased the farm; and, true, it could not be found now. Third, a long, sharp, bloody carving knife lay secreted beneath the stone on which I sat. Its discovery had given me a shock. On the hottest day of my week's experience on that stone, I became so wearied of my sitting posture that I mechanically braced my body by reaching both my hands behind me and grasping either edge of the stone.

Usually-in New England-every doorstone has beneath it the hole and home of some corpulent hop-toad, and I was not in the least surprised when my fingers found. an aperture leading beneath the old half of the discarded mill stone. But when, in

a childish spirit of venturesomeness I inserted my hand as far as I could, and touched something cold and hard and steel-like, a thrill electrified the extremities of my being.

Withdrawing my hand I sat quite still. No, I had not been observed. Evening came, and still I had made no attempt to further investigate what I rightly divined was an important clue.

Midnight came and found the house, the farmyard and all nature, save a loquacious tree toad and a serenading cricket, wrapped in densest quiet and sleep. Then I withdrew from its hiding place a thin, sharp, blood-stained butcher knife. Close to its hilt, glued on by the congealed blood, were a few white hairs-horse hairs.

On the morning following my startling discovery I sat on my doorstone and mused over the events of the night before. "If this knife had nothing to do with the disappearance of the child, why had it been concealed here, or at all?" I asked myself over and over. Another puzzling question

and that likewise had to do with the mysterious knife-dealt with the disappearance of the horse formerly owned by Bralev. This knife had been used in cutting horse-flesh-to that the white hairs of the equine and accompanying blood clots attested; but why had the disappearance of the child and his father's horse taken place concurrently? Somehow,

vaguely, the death of both were closely associated in my mind, and I could not rid myself of the belief that through the finding of the one the whereabouts of the other would become a mater of easy solution.

The forenoon was becoming hot. The cool of the hills in the far distance called invitingly, and I gazed across the undulating interval of picturesqueless valley, and scanned the horizon line. The refreshing morning with its dank odors of dewtipped golden rod, rank weeds and verdant bushes that surrounded the spot on all sides was fast giving way to the reflecting heat of the porous earth, which sent up its palpitating strata of reeking gases that quivered and trembled athwart field and ridge that formed the horizon line to the

eye.

In one direction-eastward-as I looked away to the range of low hills giving background to a very commonplace valley, lay

a large, plowed field, in the foreground. Across this plowed field ran a ridge over which the furrows extended and dropped into the invisible space beyond. A curiosity that I had noted as I sat there day by day was that the summit of this ridge, at one particular point, came directly level and in line with a curiously shaped boulder on the hill beyond, which was, perhaps, three miles away. Idly curious, I looked now for this same boulder.

Shocked, almost paralyzed, I yet sprang to my feet. It was gone! No, there it was -What!

I sat down again. The boulder was not in sight. Calmly I strove to reason it out. Instinctively I knew that I was on the verge of a great discovery. Examining carefully the intervening stretches of the plowed field, I saw it all as clearly as day. The Braley mystery was solved.

Braley himself had plowed that field on the very day of his child's disappearance. Totally indifferent to the exertions in progress all about him to recover his offspring he had trudged away behind his plow and borrowed team, giving up the work to look for his child only when public sentiment became so strong and outspoken in its suggestion of brewing trouble that he had to do something to satisfy them.

When I next stood up, I jostled a man who was standing beside me. I had been wholly unaware of his presence, and when I turned, startled, I was face to face with the "Old Man."

At midnight I led the O. M. to a spot on the plowed field that I readily identified. We were accompanied by the sheriff and two laborers with shovels. When we

had dug far enough to exhume a white horse, my superior asked:

"How did you know the horse was here ?"

"His bloated body, being within but a few inches of the surface, raised the elevation of the ground just enough to cut off my view of that boulder. He buried it too shallow."

The beast was pretty well uncovered, and the O. M. produced the knife. "This was never used on that animal," he said.

"Right you are," exclaimed the sheriff, who had gotten suddenly busy. "Punched his head with a couple of bullets. See here."

Two holes were in the horse's head.

Just then one of the diggers struck some metal with his shovel and exultantly raised aloft a six-shooter.

"Yep, that did the business," said the sheriff.

"Cover him up," ordered my chief, and he turned to walk away.

The crisis in my life had come. "Sir, hear me but a moment." He wheeled and

confronted me, plainly chagrined at my failure. I faced him squarely and looked earnestly into his face in the dim glare of our one lantern.

"This knife," I said, taking it from him, "was probably used to remove that horse's entrails."

With a cry on his lips, the O. M. sprang at the yawning hole. He tore at the dirt. concealing the animal's belly, and then

raised the gaping ribs and putrid flesh. We all stood a moment, with uncovered heads.

The Braley Mystery was solved.

N THE QUIET town of Steilacoom I set out to find a pleasant place to

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stay, secure from the egregious summer tourist who does so much to destroy the native atmosphere of a community. After some search I ran across a plain, white cottage set within an oldfashioned garden where trellises covered with sweet peas screened the porch; where clumps of dahlias flaunted their gay balls of color; where cabbages, leeks and corn grew in prim rows, and trees heavy with plums and apples cast the shade of their ample boughs. This, indeed, was an ideal retreat, sequestered, peaceful and sweet, with all the associations conjured up by rosemary, lavender and the blooming hosts of an old-fashioned garden. I entered the white-paling gate, strolled up the board walk between overhanging roses and rang the front doorbell. There was no response. I rang again, and still no answer came. Then I determined to walk around to the back of the house and thence into the orchard, feeling that there lay the real life and activity of the establishment. In this conjecture I was right, for scarcely had I entered the back garden before there appeared an elderly person of sprightly mein no less quaint than the garden itself. As I addressed her, a pair of very keen gray eyes, whose brightness was perhaps accentuated by well-polished spectacles, peered at me from under a checked sun bonnet.

I can see her now as she stood before me, her thin, wiry body stooping beneath the weight of two full milk pails. Her face was finely seamed with wrinkles, the little perpendicular lines across her upper lip making that feature appear to be gathered; and beneath the lip itself showed the impossibly even rows of her false teeth and salmon-colored gums. Behind her, sheds and other ramifications made a suitable background for the luxuriant blackberry bushes.

I was a trifle uncertain if her demeanor were that of friendliness or hostility, and when she spoke, the sharp, nasal twang of her Yankee voice was not reassuring. She was doubtful if she could take me in, for she was busied with a small but continuous retail business in milk, cream and fruit. Even while I stood awaiting her answer, a barefoot lad, dangling a pail, came to buy a nickel's worth of milk, and I afterwards found it was so all day. In this case, the unfortunate youth had brought his dog with him, and Mrs. Marburg left me while she banished the offending beast with bans as dire as though he were an intruder within the forbidden precincts of the Garden of Eden.

These interruptions over, and after a great deal of mental fluctuation, she agreed to let me come to live with her during my few weeks' stay in the village. She showed me the cool, clean room which I should occupy, and I rejoiced that it had two windows looking out upon the garden. However neat and immaculate the house might be, I preferred the garden with its atmosphere of freedom and abundant growth; for the house, like most of those owned by persons of my landlady's type, was rigidly kept. The front door could never be left open for fear of flies and dust; the dining room was never used for fear of spoiling the dining table, and the "parlor" had never a stick of furniture at all! Perhaps the lack of it was a negative kind of blessing, for I can picture the stuffy, ugly, upholstered chairs and the marble-topped table, the marble-topped table, the family album filled with staid and unlovely photographs, the crocheted tidies and lambrequins, the immortelles and pressed seaweed which would have weighed one down with a depression sufficient to overbalance the spontaneous joy of the garden.

I discovered that, little as I had suspected it, my coming was a matter of gen