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Reimer’s Hotel, on Fourth avenue, New York city, is most certainly not a first-class house.

Nor is it second-class, nor even third, but, nevertheless, it is a good house as far as it goes, and one much favored by a certain class of drummers which are to be found in all lines of trade.

We refer to those gentlemen who, while supposed to be on the road, have actually sneaked back to New York for purposes of their own, and choose to remain in hiding lest their employers discover what they are about.

Reimer understands his business and knows how to look out for his peculiar customers.

It is said that no guest ever signs his true name on Reimer’s register, and this may be set down as the truth.

On a certain evening—it was the one following the events detailed in the previous chapter—an elderly gentleman, wearing a long blue coat of peculiar pattern and a broad-brimmed white slouch hat, walked into the office of Reimer’s Hotel and, stepping up to the desk, proceeded to consult the register.

“I want to see Mr. Clay,” he said, putting his finger on the name.

“Card, sir,” replied the clerk, briefly.

The old gentleman produced a card reading Mr. James Brady, New York.

The clerk eyed him curiously as he touched the call bell and sent the card upstairs.

“See that man?” he whispered to a bystander, after the old gentleman, by request, started to follow the card upstairs.

“Yes. What about him?” asked the person addressed.

“That’s Old King Brady,” said the clerk. “Greatest detective in the United States!”

Evidently Mr. Clay thought so, for he received the old gentleman in his little four by nine room upstairs with the most profound respect.

“So you’ve come,” he exclaimed, locking the door and seating himself on the bed. “You have decided to undertake the case?”

“Yes,” replied Old King Brady, appropriating the solitary chair which the room contained. “Yes, Mr. Barclay, I could not resist the appeal you made me this morning. When I see an honest man in trouble if it is in my power to do so I like to help him out.”

“Thank you. You fully understand the situation?”

“About the pay?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

“I am a poor man, depending only on my salary.”

“And you propose to pay me in installments in case I succeed.”

“Yes. That isn’t the worst of it, though.”

“Nothing at all if I fail?”

“It will have to be so.”

“Young man,” said Old King Brady, with a careless wave of his hand, “dismiss all that from your mind.”

“You are very good, sir.”

“Not at all. You don’t understand.”

“What?”

“That I am already in the pay of two of the largest jewelry houses in New York, whose drummers have been robbed in a similar manner to yourself.”

“Bently & Archer—Lambert & Brown?”

“No matter who they are. You did well to consult me privately before reporting the loss to your house.”

“But, my dear sir, if you could only realize how short a time we have to work in.”

Ben spoke with extreme nervousness.

He knew perfectly well that if his letters from the different stops he should have made if this calamity had not overtaken him were delayed too long he was a ruined man.

“That’s all right,” replied the detective, quietly. “I understand the situation fully. By the way, is there anybody in the next room?”

There was a door connecting Ben Barclay’s room with the one next beyond and Old King Brady glanced at it as he spoke.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I think not,” was the reply. “We can talk low. We won’t be heard.”

Old King Brady got up and examined the door.

Ben saw him try the bolt, but he did not see him when he shot it back, and he considered himself a pretty shrewd observer, too.

“You did perfectly right to call on me this morning,” continued Old King Brady, returning to the chair.

“It was the only thing I could think of,” said Ben. “I was half wild. Something had to be done, and, knowing your reputation——”

“You thought of me.”

“Yes. I was quite in despair when you seemed doubtful about undertaking my case.”

“I needed time for reflection. I have now decided. I think your case may assist me in the others I spoke of.”

“I hope so.”

“But you must remember they have been hanging fire a long time.”

“And I want you to solve my mystery and recover the stolen trunk within forty-eight hours.”

“That’s what you said.”

“Yes, I know it is a difficult task, Mr. Brady—almost an impossible one—yet if you fail nothing remains but for me to see my principal and make a full confession.”

“And that means ruin?”

“Yes, and perhaps arrest.”

“Let us hope for the best. We are losing time. Describe that woman again.”

Ben did so.

“I would know her anywhere,” he added.

“I doubt it.”

“But I am positive.”

“You may be right, but more than likely she was disguised. Now, let me ask you a question.”

“A thousand if you wish.”

“When the baggage man told you that one trunk—the missing one—was checked for New York, while the others were checked for Poughkeepsie, how did it strike you, that he believed he was telling the truth or not?”

“That he fully believed it.”

“Did you question him closely?”

“Why, no; I’m ashamed to say I lost my temper.”

“And called him a liar?”

“Yes.”

“Then you did not question him at all?”

“There was no opportunity. I wanted to telegraph to have the trunk stopped.”

“And you did so?”

“Yes.”

“What was the result?”

“I didn’t learn the result until I got back to New York.”

“Then you were told at the baggage office of the Grand Central Depot that no such trunk was put on the train?”

“Yes; as I told you this morning.”

“What about the baggage man at Summerville after that?”

“He had gone home. I could see no use in calling him up. You see I was only too anxious to keep the matter quiet.”

“I see. Now, if I understand you right he claimed——”

“He claimed that I returned and asked him to change the checks on that trunk. I never did anything of the sort.”

“Ah!”

“He’s in it—there’s not a doubt that he’s in it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And why?”

“Because he believed that you actually did make such a request.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s my affair. Now, about this grip that he offered you?”

“It wasn’t mine.”

“You refused to take it?”

“Yes, of course. I never saw it before in my life.”

“And yet the baggage man positively asserted that you gave it to him to take care of?”

“When I came back and ordered him to change checks on the missing trunk, which I never did.”

“And, therefore, you called him a liar?”

“Yes.”

“Would it not have been better to have kept your temper?”

“I suppose it would.”

“And taken the grip or at least have opened it?”

“I was half wild at the time.”

“And being half wild, young man, you neglected to appropriate the only clue to your missing trunk.”

“Do you think so?”

“Decidedly I do.”

“And your theory?”

“That somebody personated you and actually ordered the trunk changed.”

“During the few moments I spent talking with the woman in black?”

“Yes.”

“Then I was buncoed?”

“You please to call it so.”

“But where did this person come from and where did he go?”

“I can’t answer the first question. I am positive about the last.”

“That he went on the train?”

“Yes.”

“He could not have acted alone?”

“No, certainly not. He had a confederate.”

“In the baggage car?”

“Yes.”

“Would it not be well to follow up that clue?”

“Perhaps. Still, I have a better one.”

“What is it?”

“It was contained in that grip, young man.”

“You surmise this.”

“On the contrary, I know it.”

“Know it?”

“Yes.”

“With the grip still in Summerville?”

“Pardon me, the grip is not still in Summerville. It is in the next room.”

Ben Barclay jumped out of his chair.

It was not wholly from the amazement caused by Old King Brady’s reply either.

Even as the detective spoke the inner door opened and a young man dressed in a fashion somewhat similar to the detective, but with a greater pretence to style, walked into the room carrying in his hand a small grip of alligator leather.

He nodded slightly to Ben as he tossed the grip on the bed, saying:

“Is that what you wanted, governor? I think you are right. It probably contains the clue.”