“Of course there is always a possibility that the thief might have entered one room while Siders was in the other; that the latter might have surprised the robber in his search for money or valuables, and that there might have been a hand-to-hand struggle before the intruder could pull out his revolver.  Oh, if I could only have seen the body!  This is working under terrific difficulties.  The marks of a hand-to-hand struggle would have been very plain on the clothes and on the person of the murdered man.  But this letter?  I do not understand this letter at all.  It is the dead man’s handwriting, that we know, but why did not the friend to whom it was addressed come forward and make himself known?  As far as I can learn from the police reports in G—­, there was no personal interest shown, no personal inquiries made about the dead man.  There was only the natural excitement that a murder would create.  Now a family, expecting to make a pleasure excursion with a friend in a day or two and suddenly hearing that this friend had been found murdered in his lodgings, would be inclined to take some little personal interest in the matter.  These people must have been in town and at home, for the excursion spoken of in the letter was to occur two days after the murder.  Miss Roemer’s remark about the dread that some people have as to any connection with the police, is true to a limited extent only.  It is true only of the ignorant mind, not of a man presumably well-to-do and properly educated.  I do not understand why the man to whom this letter was addressed has not made himself known.  The only explanation is—­that there was no such man!” A sudden sharp whistle broke from the detective’s lips.

“I must examine the dead man’s personal effects, his baggage, his papers; there may be something there.  His queer letter to Graumann —­his desire that the latter’s visit should be kept secret—­a visit which apparently had no cause at all, except to get Graumann to the house, to get him to the house in a way that he should be seen coming, but should not be seen going away.  What does this mean?

“Graumann was the only person against whom Siders had an active cause of quarrel for the moment.  There was one other man whom he hated, and this other man was the prosecuting attorney who would conduct any case of murder that came up in the town of G—.

“Now John Siders is found murdered—­is found killed, in his lodgings, the morning after he has arranged things so that his antagonist, his rival in love, Albert Graumann, shall come under suspicion of having murdered him.