Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/229

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THE TROUBLE WITH TULLIVER
195

this thing from the Brooklyn end. There are too many in that gang of boodlers for us to follow them all. So we have to trace it back from the district attorney, and find some point of contact with the aldermen. If Tulliver was bought up, he wouldn't have worked so hard up to Saturday noon. He would have taken it easy and put his assistants off. Something must have happened on Saturday, and if anything happened, whether he was doped or bribed, the only place for it to have happened was in that barber shop. It's too bad I can't trail her to-night; but I have a positive appointment with Colonel Mixter. You'll have to shadow the manicure. She leaves the shop at six o'clock; so you must hurry."

With that, he threw himself on his divan, spread a pack of cards in front of him, and began "getting Napoleon out of Saint Helena." It was a habit of his when most puzzled with his strange problems to rest his mind occasionally by a game of solitaire. It was a sort of mental bath from which he rose always refreshed and ready for a new attack of the question in hand.

"Did you find that article in The Lancet?" he asked as Valeska was preparing to leave the studio.

"No," was her reply; "but I found a reference to it in an article on the anatomy of the vasomotor nerves. The name was Weichardt, wasn't it?"

"By Jove! that's it!" he cried joyfully. "Weichardt, Weichardt!" he repeated the name to himself. "I'll get it now! I'll just let that boil subconsciously a while."

Valeska took the subway down-town, reaching the