“I’ve been helping out my own shadows,” was all the explanation he vouchsafed of his disappearances, as he continued to work.

“Watching Mrs. Ogleby?” I hinted.

“No, I didn’t interfere any more with Miss Kendall.  This was someone else—­in another part of the city.”

He said it with an air that seemed to imply that I would learn all about it shortly and I did not pursue the subject.

Meanwhile, he was arranging something on the top of a large, flat table.  It seemed to be an instrument in two parts, composed of many levers and discs and magnets, each part with a roll of paper about five inches wide.

On one was a sort of stylus with two silk cords attached at right angles to each other near the point.  On the other was a capillary glass tube at the junction of two aluminum arms, also at right angles to each other.

It was quite like old times to see Kennedy at work in his laboratory again, and I watched him curiously.  Two sets of wires were attached to each of the instruments, and they lead out of the window to some other wires which had been strung by telephone linemen only a few hours before.

Craig had scarcely completed his preparations when Carton arrived.  Things were going all right in the campaign again, I knew, at least as far as appeared on the surface.  But his face showed that Carton was clearly dissatisfied with what Craig had apparently accomplished, for, as yet, he had not told Carton about his discovery after studying the photographs, and matters between Carton and Margaret Ashton stood in the same strained condition that they had when last we saw her.

I must say that I, too, was keenly disappointed by the lack of developments in this phase of the case.  Aside from the fact that the photographs had not actually been published, the whole thing seemed to me to be a mess.  What had Craig said to Dorgan?  Above all, what was his game?  Was he playing to spare the girl’s feelings merely by allowing the election to go on without a scandal to Carton?  I knew the result of the election was now the least of Carton’s worries.

Carton did not say much, but he showed that he thought it high time for Kennedy to do something.

We were seated about the flat table, wondering when Kennedy would break his silence, when suddenly, as if by a spirit hand, the stylus before us began to move across one of the rolls of paper.

We watched it uncomprehendingly.

At last I saw that it was actually writing the words.  “How is it working?”

Quickly Craig seized the stylus on the lower part of the instrument and wrote in his characteristic scrawl, “All right, go ahead.”

“What is the thing?” asked Carton, momentarily forgetting his own worries at the new marvel before us.