On the face of it, it seemed incredible that a man who was so well known, especially to the thousands of police and others in the official and political life of the city, could remain at large unrecognized.  Still, I recalled other cases where prominent men had disappeared.  The facts in Murtha’s case spoke for themselves.

Comparatively little occurred during the day, although the political campaign which had begun with the primaries many weeks before was now drawing nearer its close and the campaigners were getting ready for the final spurt to the finish.

With Kennedy’s unmasking of the unprincipled activities of Kahn, that worthy changed his tactics, or at least dropped out of our sight.  Mrs. Ogleby lunched with Langhorne and I began to suspect that the shadow that had been placed on her could not have been engaged by Martin Ogleby, for he was not the kind who would take reports of the sort complaisantly.  Someone else must be interested.

As for the Black Book itself, I wondered more as time went on that no one made use of it.  Even though we gained no hint from Langhorne after the peculiar robbery of his safe, it was impossible to tell whether or not he still retained the detectaphone record.  On the other hand, if Dorgan had obtained it by using the services of someone in the criminal hierarchy that Murtha had built up, it would not have been likely that we would have heard anything about it.  We were in the position of men fighting several adversaries in the dark without knowing exactly whom we fought.

We had just finished dinner, that night, Kennedy and I, and, as had been the case in most of the waking hours of the previous twenty-four, had been speculating on the possible solution of the mysterious dropping out of sight of Murtha.  The evening papers had contained nothing that the morning papers had not already published and Kennedy had tossed the last of an armful into the scrap basket when the buzzer on the door of our apartment sounded.

A young man stood there as I opened the door, and handed me a note, as he touched his hat.  “A message for Professor Kennedy from Mr. Carton, sir,” he announced.

I recognized him as Carton’s valet as he stood impatiently waiting for Craig to read the letter.

“It’s all right—­there’s no answer—­I’ll see him immediately,” nodded Kennedy, tossing the hasty scrawl over to me as the valet disappeared.

“My study at home has been robbed, probably by sneak thieves,” read the note.  “Would you like to look it over?  I can’t find anything missing except a bundle of old and valueless photographs.  Carton.”

“Looks as if someone thought Carton might have got that Black Book from Langhorne,” I commented, following the line on which I had been thinking at the time.

“And the taking of the photographs was merely a blind, after not finding it?” Kennedy queried, I cannot say much impressed by my theory.