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“I been lookin’ everywhere fer you,” said he, somewhat breathlessly. “Where you been?”

“‘Tendin’ to business,” retorted Anderson. “What’s the matter?”

Mr. Fryback took the precaution to ascertain that there were no listeners in the store. “Somebody–some woman, you c’n bet on that–told my wife last night that I poisoned old Mike.”

“Well, you did, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. That is, I hired Charlie Brubaker to do it. But she says I did it with my own hands, and–my gosh, Anderson, I never went through such a night in my life as last night.” He mopped his brow. “You’d think I was a murderer. Course, I denied it. I swore he wasn’t dead, and that I’d increase the reward to a hundred dollars just to show her. What I want you to do, right away, is to have a new set of bills printed, offerin’ a hundred dollars reward for that dog, instead of three. It’s the only chance I’ve got of ever being able to live in my own house again.”

The Marshal eyed him reflectively. “If you could get her to agree to let you offer the reward for Mike, dead or alive–“

“She wants him alive, and no other way.”

“Can’t you buy her off?”

Mr. Fryback groaned. “I could–” he began dismally, and then fell to chewing with great vigour.

“What would it cost?” inquired Anderson, feelingly.

“An automobile,” replied Mr. Fryback, after opening and closing the stove-door once more. “It would be cheaper, you see, to offer a hundred dollars for Mike,” he explained, ingenuously.

“It certainly would,” agreed the Marshal, “seein’ as you wouldn’t have to pay fer anything except the printin’ of the notices. If you wanted to show how much you think of your wife, and how anxious you are to please her, you could go as high as a thousand dollars, Mort.”

“Would you, reely, Anderson?”

“Sure. She could lord it over all these women–includin’ my wife–who’ve been sayin’ Mike wasn’t worth fifty cents and didn’t have a pedigree any longer than his tail. Why, if she wanted to go on lyin’ about the value of that old dog, she could tell people she had been offered a thousand dollars for Marmyduke by a well-known dog collector in New York.”

“That might please her,” reflected Mort. “Course, this thing has already cost me quite a lot of money, outside the printin’. I’ve had to give Bill Kepsal a receipt in full fer what he owes me, and that young Brubaker’s been in twice to price base-burner stoves. He says if he c’n get a good one fer ten dollars he’ll take it, and his heart seems to be set on that seventy-dollar Regal over yonder. I’m in an awful fix, Anderson.”

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t advise you to let Mike die a natural death.”

“I wish to goodness I had,” lamented Mort.

The door opened at that juncture, and in walked a man and a woman. The former was carrying a square black “valise,” inadequately described by Mrs. Bloomer as twice the natural size. As a matter of fact, it was more like a half-grown trunk, to quote no less an authority than the town marshal.

The proprietor of the hardware store was, at a glance, qualified to pass an opinion on the personal appearance of the two strangers. His companion’s attention, however, was devoted so earnestly to the big black “valise,” that he couldn’t have told, for the life of him, whether the customers were young or old, black or white. His fascinated gaze was riveted upon the object the man deposited carefully on the floor near the door.

“You are a locksmith, I perceive,” remarked the strange man, addressing Mort. “I’d like to have you see if you can open this box for me. We’ve lost or mislaid the key.”

“What fer sort of a lock is it?” asked Mort, approaching.

“Hold on, Mort!” called out Mr. Crow. “Don’t monkey with that trunk.”

Marshal Crow was issuing commands right and left, and the squad, augmented by a step-ladder from the hardware shop, was about to enter the hotel, when Mrs. Fox uttered an excited little shriek, and then these desolating words: