one of the best ever, who never used anything but a particular drill, a pet bit, and his ear.  Somebody snitched though, so the last I heard of him he was doing a twenty-year stretch.  Pity, too.  He was an artist in his line, that fellow.  And his taste in neckties I have never seen equaled.”  The Butterfly Man’s voice, evenly pitched and pleasantly modulated, a cultivated voice, was quite casual.

He gathered his tools together and replaced them in the old worn case.  “Wonder if that safe is a side-bolt?” he mused.  “Most likely.  I dare say it’s only the average combination.  A one-armed yegg could open most of the boxes in this town with a tin button-hook.  Anyhow, it would have to be a new-laid lock I couldn’t open.  If he’s left the letters in the safe we’re all right—­so here’s hoping he has.  I certainly don’t want to go to his room unless I have to.  Hunter’s not the sort to sit on his hands, and I’m not feeling what you’d call real amiable.”

A glance at his face, with little glinting devil-lights shining far back in his eyes, set me to babbling: 

“Oh, no, no, no, no, that would never do!  God forbid that you should go to his rooms!  He must have left them in the safe!  He had to leave them in the safe!”

“Sure he’s left them in the safe:  why shouldn’t he?” he made light of my palpable fears.  Slipping into his gray overcoat, he pulled on his felt hat, thrust his hands into his wellworn dogskin gloves, and picked up the package.  Nobody in the world ever looked less like a criminal than this brown-faced, keen-eyed man with his pleasant bearing.  Why, this was John Flint, the kindly bug-hunter all Appleboro loved, “that good and kind and Christian man, our brother John Flint, sometimes known as the Butterfly Man.”

“Now, don’t you worry any at all, parson,” he was saying.  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.  I’ll take care of myself, and I’ll get those letters if they’re in existence.  I’ve got to get them.  What else was I born for, I’d like to know?”

The question caught me like a lash across the face.

“You were born,” I said violently, “to win an honored name, to do a work of inestimable value.  And you are deliberately and quixotically risking it, and I allow you to risk it, because a girl’s happiness hangs in the balance!  If you are detected it means your own ruin, for you could never explain away those tools.  Yes!  You are facing possible ruin and disgrace.  You might have to give up your work for years—­have you considered that?  Oh, John Flint, stop a moment, and reflect!  There is nothing in this for you, John, nothing but danger.  No, there’s nothing in it for you, except—­”

He held up his hand, with a gesture of dignity and reproach.

“—­except that I get my big chance to step in and save the girl I happen to love, from persecution and wretchedness, if not worse,” said he simply.  “If I can do that, what the devil does it matter what happens to me?  You talk about name and career!  Man, man, what could anything be worth to me if I had to know she was unhappy?”