The crowd dispersed as the patrol wagon took Garney and the officer away, but one man lingered and fell into step with me as I turned away. It was Mr. Ellison. I had not noticed him in the crowd.

"What\'s all this?" he asked, twisting his head to look up at me, bird-fashion.

"Walk with me, and I\'ll tell you," I said. "I am going down to see Benbow."

And as we walked I told him of the surprising developments of the last few hours,--that Garney, the Latin tutor, and Gene\'s friend, was the man with crooked teeth who had been eating apples in Barker\'s inner office while waiting for his victim, who had observed and recognized my locket; and that Garney was Diavolo the hypnotist who had threatened to kill his partner, Barker, if his identity were disclosed. (I may say here, to anticipate events which befell later, that this identity was absolutely established by Dr. Shaw, the dentist who had extracted a tooth for Diavolo,--the first case in the law reports, I believe, where identity was established by the teeth. By that time every link was so clear that Garney\'s confession was hardly needed,--though he did break down in the end and make a plea of "Guilty.")

Ellison listened with his peculiar interest,--an interest in events rather than in persons, and in ideas more than either. At the end he nodded his alert head rapidly.

"Yes, I knew Garney had practised hypnotism but I thought it was years ago. Barker told me, in strict confidence."

"Barker!"

He nodded. "Yes. I didn\'t say anything about it, because people seemed to think it wasn\'t good form for me to have any civil relations with the man who had killed my second cousin, but as a matter of fact, I knew him fairly well. Gene would turn white at the mention of his name, so I didn\'t mention it. That check for $250--you remember?"

"Yes."

"Well, that was to pay for a course of lessons in hypnotism. He promised to get me a practical teacher who had been a public performer,--Garney, in fact. He hadn\'t made the arrangements yet, but he was confident that he could bring it about. And I was eager to have the opportunity to investigate the matter, scientifically, you understand. If he could teach me how to do it, I would understand the thing,--the rationale of it, I mean. But it was strictly confidential, because of Garney\'s position in the university."

"Did he know you knew?"

"No. Barker was killed before he could arrange it. I went to his room the next day, to see if I could by chance recover that check, which hadn\'t been presented at the bank, but his dragon landlady gave me no chance,--and then you told me that you saw it in his pocket the next day. So I let things take their own course."

"Somebody did break into his rooms that night," I said. "That has never been cleared up."

"Garney!" said Ellison, shrewdly. "He has in his possession certain books which I know Barker had in his room the day before. He undoubtedly removed them, with any papers or other matters that might have connected him with Barker or revealed his practices."

"How do you know he has them?" I asked, amazed.

"Oh, I have made a point of seeing a good deal of Garney lately. You see, I am interested in the occult, scientifically. And since Barker couldn\'t act as go-between, I have been cultivating Garney on my own account."

"Yes, and given him a chance to work on Miss Benbow\'s feelings," I groaned.

"Why, it never occurred to me that he was interested in her," he said blandly.

"That was too obvious to attract your attention, doubtless," I could not refrain from saying. "Well, you have cleared up a good many points, Mr. Ellison, but I\'d like to ask another question. Did you send a thousand dollars to William Jordan, and if so, why?"

For the first time he looked embarrassed.

"Why yes," he said, nodding his head deliberately. "Jean told me about him and his loss. It struck me that it was an unnecessary piece of hard luck that he should suffer as an individual for an advancement of knowledge which will benefit the race. He didn\'t care anything about hypnotism scientifically. I did. I had fostered its development, so far as lay within my power. So, in a manner, I was responsible for his loss. Not immediately, of course, and yet not so remotely, either, since I was encouraging Barker. At any rate, I felt that I should be more comfortable if I made it up to the old farmer. When hypnotism is no longer a mystery but an understood science, such things won\'t happen!" He beamed with enthusiasm, and I saw that I had never understood the man. He was an idealist.

"I hope they won\'t," I said doubtfully. "But hypnotism seems to me devil\'s work, both for the hypnotizer and the victim. Think of Jordan, and look at Garney. Aside from his crimes, the man is somehow abnormal. He has the look of a haunted man. He faints like a woman when he is discovered. No, no hypnotism for me, thank you. But in any event, your action in reimbursing poor old Jordan does you credit."

He waved that aside. "What I should like to know," he said, changing the subject, "is how Gene became involved in this affair. If Garney shot Barker, why did Gene say he did? He isn\'t as fond of Garney as all that. You don\'t suppose--" He stopped suddenly and looked at me hard. "You don\'t suppose that Garney hypnotized him, and sent him to shoot Barker? That would be neat! Damnable, of course, but damnably neat!"

"I don\'t know," I said slowly. I had been afraid to face that idea myself. "I am going to see him now. Perhaps, with the news of Garney\'s arrest for a lever, I may get the truth from him. If you don\'t mind, I want to see him alone."

"All right. I\'ll leave you here."

But as he turned away, Fellows came up from behind and fell into step with me. I think he had been watching for the chance.

"Royce\'s story is all right, Mr. Hilton," he said. "The cars were tied up on the Park line the night that Barker was shot. And I have seen the conductor. He knows Royce, who is a fireman at Engine House No. 6, and he remembers seeing him on the stalled car, with a girl."

"A good alibi, but he won\'t need to prove it now," I said. "We have found Barker\'s murderer. It is a man named Allen Garney."

"Oh, ho!" Fellows exclaimed, in obvious surprise.

"Do you know him?" I asked, recalling the damaging charge which Garney had made against Fellows.

"I know who he is, and I know that there was something between him and Barker in the old days,--on the quiet. Garney didn\'t care to be seen with him, but in a way they were pals. In fact, I went to see him the other day to make some inquiries about Barker\'s past. He was rather rude in getting rid of me."

"You frightened him. He didn\'t want to be identified as having any connection with Barker. I see. That\'s why he used your name as a scapegoat to turn my attention from himself. He suggested that you might have shot Barker yourself, Fellows!"

"Did he?" said Fellows, grimly. "Well, if I had, it would only have been the execution of justice. Barker was a murderer."

"You mean in killing Senator Benbow?"

"More than that. Do you remember the story that the Samovar printed about Mr. Clyde?"

"Well, rather!"

"It brought to my mind a story that Barker once told me. When I was a fresh kid from the country and he was teaching me the ways of the world and of the race-track, he told me that he had once stabbed a man in a Texas hotel for cheating at cards. He said that he and three other men were playing in the room of one of them, and that was the one that was killed. He told me that another man was arrested, tried and convicted, while he sat in the court room and watched the proceedings."

"What a monster!"

"He told the story merely to point out that every man had to take his chances,--good luck or bad,--just as it came. He was a great believer in luck. It was his luck to escape and the other man\'s luck to be convicted by mistake. But he said that the man escaped and was not hung. The Clyde story was so much like Barker\'s story that I wondered whether it might not be the same, and I went to Garney to ask if he knew whether Barker was the man who killed Henley. He would not admit knowing anything, but he let slip a word in his first anger that he could not take back. It was Barker."

"The villain! And he claimed to be merely a spectator in the court room, and that that was how he came to recognize Clyde! He probably studied his face pretty carefully during the days when he was watching Clyde in the dock where he knew he should have been himself! I don\'t wonder he recognized him. What a man!"

"I wonder if we can prove it," exclaimed Fellows.

"We have just discovered an old letter which will completely establish an alibi for Clyde,--I\'ll tell you the details later. But whether we can get your story before the court or not, it is undoubtedly the inner truth of the matter and it rounds out the story of Barker\'s villainy very completely. And he met the treachery he dealt out to others. He was slain by the hand of the false friend he trusted and whom he probably had never wronged."

"But if Garney killed him, what about Benbow?"

"I am going to see him now, and see if I can find out what it is that he is concealing. I\'m glad I don\'t have to swear out a warrant against you, Fellows!"

Fellows smiled quite humanly as he turned away.

I found Benbow thinner, more nervous, and less self-possessed than I had ever seen him before. I was glad to see these signs of disintegration in his baffling reserve.

"I have had a strenuous afternoon," I said, as we shook hands. "Since four o\'clock I have discovered Barker\'s widow, spoiled an elopement, and had your Latin tutor, Garney, arrested."

He looked surprised, naturally, but nothing more. "What for?" he asked.

"For complicity in a murder," I said, watching him closely.

"Oh, impossible!" he exclaimed. "Not Mr. Garney!" His natural manner, his genuine look of surprise and inquiry, were disconcerting. I saw I must work my way carefully.

"Did you know that Mr. Garney had hypnotic powers?" I asked.

Ah, there my probe went home! His tell-tale face flushed and his eyes evaded mine.

"I can tell you nothing about that," he said, with dignified reserve.

"Perhaps I may be able to tell you something that will be news to you, even though you knew of his practices. He is known on the vaudeville stage as Diavolo, and he has toured, giving exhibitions in hypnotism."

"I didn\'t know that," he said,--and I could not doubt his sincerity. "It must have been a long time ago."

"No longer ago than last summer. He kept his own name from the public. But I infer that you did know something of his practices in private?"

"Yes," he said, hesitatingly.

"Did you ever allow him to hypnotize you?" I asked abruptly.

He was obviously discomposed, but he tried to cover his embarrassment by assuming an air of careless frankness. "Oh, yes. I believe I was a good subject. Mr. Garney was trying to develop my mental powers by hypnotism. He told me some remarkable accounts of idiots who had been mentally stimulated by hypnotic suggestion to do creditable work in their classes."

"Was that the direction in which his suggestions were made?" I asked, as casually as possible. I must try to get from him, without disturbing his sensibilities, as clear an account as he could give me, or would give me, of his peculiar relations with Garney.

"Oh, yes. It was just to help me with my Latin. And it did help," he added, defensively. I could see that he was not entirely at ease over the admission.

"How often did you put yourself under his influence?"

"Oh, I don\'t remember. Half a dozen times, perhaps."

"Did you remember afterwards what he had said or done to you while you were hypnotized?"

"Not a thing! I just went to sleep, and woke up. It isn\'t different from any other kind of sleep," he explained, with a youthful air of wisdom, "only that a part of you stays awake inside and takes lessons from your teacher while you don\'t know it."

"So I understand," I said gently. His assumption of superior knowledge touched me. "Was it hard to go to sleep?"

"The first time it wasn\'t easy. Something inside of my brain seemed to snap awake just as I was going off,--over and over again. But at last I went off. After that it was easier each time. Once he hypnotized me in class and I found I had been making a brilliant recitation, though I didn\'t remember anything about it myself. And once he hypnotized me while I was asleep, and I never knew it at all until he told me afterwards and showed me some things I had written while asleep."

"Did Mr. Garney ever speak to you of Alfred Barker?"

"No." His manner froze, as it always did at any mention of Barker.

"You did not know, then, that there was enmity between the two men?"

"No. I didn\'t know that Mr. Garney knew--him--at all." He swerved from pronouncing the name.

"Yes, Barker had acted as his business manager in the vaudeville business, and they had quarreled. Now tell me something else. Did Garney hypnotize you the day that you hunted up Barker to shoot him?"

"No." A look of dawning uneasiness and indignation crossed his face.

"Did you see him that evening at all?"

"No," he said, with obvious relief.

"Now wi............