Reply Paid by H. F. Heard Page A

saddles and horses), I doubt if AP is at all what you think. Without knowing something of our late prospector’s nationality one might be utterly at a loss. As it is, I have a faint feeling that it might pay me to revive a knowledge that I once had of a book I ceased to study before I took up Thucydides—a book once much loved by riddle-raisers.”
    â€œRiddle-raisers.” At that last, almost openly contemptuous phrase, and the whole out-of-hand dismissal of my consistent suggestions, my patience snapped.
    â€œMr. Mycroft,” I said, “it is clear that my particular assistance is nothing but a hindrance to a mind set as yours.” I thought of trying to use Dr. Johnson’s grand slam, “Sir, I have given you a reason, I cannot give you an understanding,” but I hadn’t the nerve quite to venture on that. I would have probably provoked a painful rejoinder. So I simply went on, “I have done my best and given you, I cannot but believe, some useful, essential information. Your attitude, however, persists in being.…” I wanted the sentence to be just, balanced, ironic, final, but it wasn’t going any better than the code. “I can’t do anything more,” I stumbled on. “I’m tired and I think you’re deliberately provoking. I am going, and want to drop this unpleasant business.”
    â€œI apologize,” he said. “I think aloud too much. I have to keep my own mind clear. You were muddling my line of thought.”
    A nice apology, to say your colleague is worse than useless!
    â€œVery well,” I snapped. “I can, at least, prevent your clear mind from being further contaminated.” And I walked straight out of the house.

Chapter V
    And I found myself back in my well-proportioned life, again busy with problems, neat, adequate, remunerative. Mr. Mycroft made no motion to reopen our acquaintance. To close the matter definitely, I even returned his check, though I felt I had really more than earned it. There was no reply. For all I knew he had left the country, having failed to find a real clue. After all, even that old dead fellow—well, one was always seeing in the papers about some hobo found dried up in a gully after wandering off and getting lost. The Indians often put a few stones on top of them and don’t tell anyone, not wanting to be pulled into court and questioned. I’d had pointed out to me several such cairns when I visited Death Valley and Cactus Park. And as to all that tooth business—I’ve always had my doubts about all this fingerprinting. The patterns are too simple not to be repeated pretty often; and tooth-rings—well, they’re even more unreliable, I should wager. About the clue hidden in the table’s secret drawer? That was odd—at least that it should start with the very words I had decoded. But then, who knows, there might be some silly-solemn confraternity Ku-Klux-Klanning round these desert states and playing at being hooded, barefoot friars—all that New Mexico “Penitente” business taken up as a new thrill by whites from the Indians and the Mexicans. Anyhow, I was determined to dismiss the whole story, and as I was judge, dismissed it was.
    Once again the whole matter was shelved. When, right into my office, right past my secretary, without check or warning, in walked—Intil! Of course I had made up my mind that Mr. Mycroft was foolishly wrong. Therefore, of course, I had no reason for being startled at seeing a man, suspicions about whom I had decided were groundless. Yet he had undeniably behaved very oddly with me and Miss Brown. I could and would take a stand on that—demand an explanation.
    â€œWell, sir,” I got in first, and threw myself back in my chair—always a strong position with a fine desk in front of you, “your behavior needs no little explaining. I give you a perfectly successful reading and then you bolt off without