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“I suppose you’ll find St. Louis a little slower than Chicago,” he went on, “but we have some of the biggest newspaper stories here you ever saw. You remember the Preller Trunk Mystery, don’t you, and that big Missouri-Pacific train robbery last year?”

I recalled both distinctly. “Is that so?” I commented, thinking of my career in Chicago and hoping for a duplication of it here.

Heavy steps were heard in the hall just outside, and Mr. Hartung jumped to his work like a frightened mouse; on the instant his head was fairly pulled down between his shoulders and his nose pressed over his work. He seemed to shrivel and shrink, and I wondered why. I went into the next room just as Mr. Tobias Mitchell entered. When I explained that the address he had given me was a vacant lot he merely looked up at me quizzically, suspiciously.

“Couldn’t find it, eh? Somebody must have given me the wrong tip. Wait in the next room. I’ll call you when I want you.”

I returned to that empty room, from which I could hear the industrious pencil of Mr. Hartung and the occasional throat-clearing cough of Mr. Mitchell brooding among his papers.