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Rh the window. Nor did he ever, when Perry was looking, shrug his shoulders as villains always did on the screen at the theater. In short, as a criminal he was decidedly disappointing!

One morning he actually laughed. Perry couldn't hear the laugh, but he could see it, and there was nothing sardonic about it. It was just a jolly, chuckling sort of laugh, apparently inspired by something in the morning paper. Perry's own features creased in sympathy. After that Perry found it very difficult to place credence in the "safe-breaker" theory. Then, too, Fudge failed to develop any new evidence. In fact, to all appearances, Fudge had gone to sleep on his job. When Perry mentioned the matter to him Fudge would frown portentously and intimate that affairs had reached a point where mental rather than physical exertion counted most. Perry, though, was no longer deceived.

"Huh," he said one day, "there was nothing in that yarn of yours and you've found it out. What's the good of pretending any more?"

Fudge looked sarcastic and mysterious but refused to bandy words. His "If-you-knew-all-I-know" air slightly impressed the other, and Perry begged to be taken into the secret. But Fudge showed that he felt wounded by his friend's defec-