ready for him yet and I can't be interrupted."

I took down the receiver, prepared to perjure my immortal soul. It
was indeed Carton, bursting with news and demanding to see Kennedy
immediately.

Almost before I had finished with the carefully framed, glib
excuse that I was to make, he shouted to me over the wire, "What
do you think, Jameson? Tell him to come down right away. The
impossible has happened. I have got under Dopey Jack's guard--he
has confessed. It's big. Tell Kennedy I'll wait here at my office
until he comes."

He had hung up the receiver before I could question him further. I
think it cured Kennedy, temporarily of asking me to fib for him
over the telephone. He was as anxious as I to see Carton, now, and
plunged into the remaining work on the photographs eagerly.

He finished much sooner than he would, otherwise, and only to
preserve the decency of the excuse that I had made did not hasten
down to the Criminal Courts Building before a reasonable time had
elapsed. As we entered Carton's office we could tell from the very
atmosphere of the halls that something was happening. The
reporters in their little room outside were on the qui vive and I
heard a whisper and a busy scratching of pencils as we passed in
and the presence of someone else in the District Attorney's office
was noted.

Carton met us in a little ante-room. He was all excitement
himself, but I could see that it was a clouded triumph. His mind