Varr was instantly wrathful at discovering in the gray-haired individual who turned out to be their spokesman an old employee whose name was Maple, the very man he had spoken of to Bolt as possibly replacing Graham as manager. He could almost hear Jason chuckling over the fact as he snapped a curt command at the fellow to state his business.

"We've come for a talk with you, Mr. Varr," began Maple soberly, "because there's some of us who feel that this strike has gone on too long as it is. It's bad for us, sir, and it must be bad for you and Mr. Bolt. We three have been appointed to call on you gentlemen and ask you to look into the whole situation with us. There's points on which we've been unreasonable, maybe, and there's others where we think you've been unreasonable. If we give in a bit and you give in a bit perhaps we can reach some sort of a compromise that'll let us all go to work--"

"Stop! I've been waiting for that word compromise! You can go back and tell your crowd that this strike isn't going to be settled--it's going to be _broken_!" Varr smashed one fist into the other as he roared his defiance. "Go back and tell 'em! Tell 'em I'll watch every man of you starving in the gutters before I'll be driven into doing what I've said I won't do. Go set some more fires in the tannery; you'll soon find that'll get you nowhere but in jail!"

"We've set no fires, Mr. Varr," answered Maple with dignity. "On the contrary, sir, the three of us here now were amongst them who helped to put out the fire last night. You've no call to blackguard honest men.

As for starving in the gutter, sir--"

He stopped speaking to reach in his pocket and draw out a few small bills, which he held up for Varr's inspection, and at a nod of his head, his two companions also produced money from their trousers.

Simon glanced at it and sneered.

"Found a union to support you, eh?"

"No, sir, not that. To tell the truth, Mr. Varr, there don't seem to be any good reason to tell you where this came from, or how it came, but we feel in duty bound to say it brought with it a message for you."

"A message? For me?" Simon repeated the phrases quickly, his mind alert for new alarms. "Well, what was it? Get it out!"

"We were told to tell you that while we held out against you we could count on getting money for our needs from the 'Black Monk'."

"The Black Monk!" Simon fell back a pace as he whispered the words.

"The Black Monk! What--what do you mean?"

"That's all we can tell you, sir." Maple fumbled with his cap and coughed nervously. "We'll ask you again, sir, as in duty bound to our comrades, if you'll help us come to a compromise--"

"_No_!"

The committee shrank back from the explosive quality of the monosyllable that was like a door slammed in their faces.

"Very well, sir, then we'll wish you good day--and a kinder heart for your fellowmen."

"Stop!"

Sheer anger at this latest evidence of his enemy's activity had swept Simon Varr beyond self-control, beyond reasoning and beyond decency.

He launched upon the stolid committee a rushing torrent of insult and invective. The veneer of dignity that had come to him with wealth and position slipped from him, as the old skin slips from a snake, and he went back to the vocabulary of his youth for terms sufficiently blasphemous and obscene to express his opinion of the strike, the strikers, the committee and its sponsors. He did not stop until his breath failed and left him panting.

The two men in the small office listened to that tirade in embarra.s.sed silence. Jason Bolt fidgeted in his chair and grew pink to the tips of his ears. Herman Krech, as became a tactful bystander, gazed at the floor, stared at the ceiling, studied the glowing tip of his cigar, peered through the grimy window at the uninspiring view of Hambleton and generally comported himself with discretion and _savoir faire_.

Inwardly, he was wondering if he had any right to inflict this termagant tanner on his unsuspecting friend, the detective. Not by a jugful, unless the mutt had a mighty interesting case--

"I think," said Simon Varr, reentering his office, "I think I have now made my position clear to those fellows!" A grim satisfaction was apparent in his voice and bearing, the usual aftermath with him of an outburst of temper. "Now we can resume where we left off."

"What was that stuff about a monk?" demanded Jason.

"That's part of my story. When Mr. Krech has heard it, he will tell us if it is likely to interest his friend." He sent a questioning glance at the big man. "By the way, what is his name?"

"Peter Creighton," said Mr. Krech.

_X: Creighton Takes the Case_

Jason Bolt and Herman Krech listened to Varr's narrative in rapt silence. The former's interest was mixed with amazement, the latter's with enthusiasm. As the tale progressed the big man hitched farther and farther forward in his chair, his expression that of a little child who proposes to miss no syllable of a fascinating fairy story. He considered himself something of a connoisseur in crime, did Mr. Krech, thanks to a few experiences with his friend Creighton, and a subject that had always made an appeal to his imagination was now become the hobby of his every idle moment. Although he would not have abandoned a lucrative business to take a position on Creighton's staff of operatives, it was his secret grief that the detective had never recognized his ability to the extent of offering him one.

He was beaming with delight by the time Varr had ended his curt account of his tribulations, and his distaste of the tanner's personality had been temporarily forgotten.

"Gee Joseph, Mr. Varr!" he burst out. "You really ought to congratulate yourself! You've been the victim of the prettiest piece of persecution I've ever heard of!"

"Thanks," returned Simon without enthusiasm.

"He seems to be waltzing all around you and jabbing you just where it will hurt the most, and yet he's clever enough to evade capture and even to keep you from guessing his ident.i.ty. Why not make a list of your known enemies and check them off one by one?"

"Too many of 'em," retorted Simon briefly.

"Ah, yes--I should have thought of that!" A m.u.f.fled snort from Jason marked his appreciation of the seemingly ingenuous jibe. "If a man's known by the enemies he makes, I should say this fellow was a lasting credit to you. You'll miss him when he's gone."

"I'll miss him with pleasure. But when is he going? D'you think this is a problem that will appeal to Mr. Creighton's critical taste?"

"It will have my hearty endors.e.m.e.nt, anyway, when I submit it to him.

He likes crooks with imagination, I know, and this bird has it. I wish you had brought along that note you got from him."

"I did." The tanner reached into his pocket and drew forth the message that he had found in the deft stick. "I decided to fetch it as long as I intended to tell you the story."

Krech accepted the bit of brown paper, carefully taking it by the tip of one corner and opening it with a shake. He held it out for Jason to read, but drew it back from the other's outstretched hand.

"Naughty, naughty, mustn't touch!"

"Fingerprints?" grunted Varr skeptically.

"It's a possibility we must consider," insisted the big man firmly. "I don't believe there are any, sort of pity if there were."

"Pity, eh? What do you mean, pity?"

"It would cheapen our crook. I don't believe he's the lad to leave clues." He added calmly, "Hush, now, and let me read this carefully."

Simon gasped and hushed. He consoled himself with the reflection that this human mastodon probably knew what it was about.

"Well, I'm hanged!" blurted Jason Bolt, when he had perused the missive. "What do you make of it, Krech?"

"Why, there are a number of curious features about it that leap to the eye," said Mr. Krech blandly. "I will call them to Creighton's attention, of course." He stepped to Varr's desk, helped himself to an unused envelope and inserted the note. "How many other people have touched this paper besides yourself, Mr. Varr?"

"Not a soul. I've shown it to no one."

"Oh, that's fine." He picked up a clean letterhead and held it out to the tanner. "Ink your thumbs and forefingers on that pad there and then press them on this." He waited until Simon had gruntingly obeyed.

"Good. These will identify your marks on the message, and if there are any others they will be the sign manual of our crook."

"How can you be sure?" argued Jason. "It's obviously an old sc.r.a.p of paper and a dozen people may have handled it before the crook got hold of it."

Mr. Krech regarded his friend with a look of dignified annoyance.