“Walter,” added Kennedy, as he laid down the paper and, without any more sparring, came directly to the point, “there was something missing from that safe.”

I had no need to express the interest I now really felt, and Kennedy hastened to take advantage of it.

“Just before you came in,” he continued, “Jack Fletcher called me up from Great Neck.  You probably don’t know it, but it has been privately reported in the inner circle of the University that old Fletcher was to leave the bulk of his fortune to found a great school of preventive medicine, and that the only proviso was that his nephew should be dean of the school.  The professor told me over the wire that the will was missing from the safe, and that it was the only thing missing.  From his excitement I judge that there is more to the story than he cared to tell over the ’phone.  He said his car was on the way to the city, and he asked if I wouldn’t come and help him—­he wouldn’t say how.  Now, I know him pretty well, and I’m going to ask you to come along, Walter, for the express purpose of keeping this thing out of the newspapers understand?—­until we get to the bottom of it.”

A few minutes later the telephone rang and the hall-boy announced that the car was waiting.  We hurried down to it; the chauffeur lounged down carelessly into his seat and we were off across the city and river and out on the road to Great Neck with amazing speed.

Already I began to feel something of Kennedy’s zest for the adventure.  I found myself half a dozen times on the point of hazarding a suspicion, only to relapse again into silence at the inscrutable look on Kennedy’s face.  What was the mystery that awaited us in the great lonely house on Long Island?

We found Fletcherwood a splendid estate directly on the bay, with a long driveway leading up to the door.  Professor Fletcher met us at the porte cochere, and I was glad to note that, far from taking me as an intruder, he seemed rather relieved that someone who understood the ways of the newspapers could stand between him and any reporters who might possibly drop in.

He ushered us directly into the library and closed the door.  It seemed as if he could scarcely wait to tell his story.

“Kennedy,” he began, almost trembling with excitement, “look at that safe door.”

We looked.  It had been drilled through in such a way as to break the combination.  It was a heavy door, closely fitting, and it was the best kind of small safe that the state of the art had produced.  Yet clearly it had been tampered with, and successfully.  Who was this scientific cracksman who had apparently accomplished the impossible?  It was no ordinary hand and brain which had executed this “job.”

Fletcher swung the door wide, and pointed to a little compartment inside, whose steel door had been jimmied open.  Then out of it he carefully lifted a steel box and deposited it on the library table.