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 changed rings with some one, and he doesn't want me to know it. Why?"

He said to Pritchard, still thoughtful: "One of our detectives, Ben Teague, is down in Middleburg on a case. He's probably at the Mansion House there. Under the name of Bert Todd. Make a note of it: 'Bert Todd.' I want to get a message to him without disturbing his cover. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well. Go out to a telephone-booth—in the Holman Hotel—and get him on the wire. Bert Todd. Representing the Consolidated Farm Implement Company. Say to him— Take this down: 'I have some confidential information to give you, on behalf of the president of the company, who is temporarily out of the state. And I cannot give it explicitly over the telephone.'" (He was dictating in the tone of a business communication.) "'The counsel of our company has just received this information from an officer of the company whose name is Steinholtz—the same name as the sheriff of your county there. He informs us that a competitor by the name of Lynch is likely to make trouble for us in his district. You understand it's the president's home district, and any such disturbance of our prestige in that locality might seriously affect the re-election of the company's present management by the stockholders. It is therefore imperative that Mr. Lynch shall be headed off.