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might be?"

      "I could hardly say. It looks like a bottle for smelling salts. What is that stuff inside?"

      "Ah, now you're asking! And what do you think of the handsome silver cap to it?"

      "Really, Terry," replied Drayton with a touch of impatience, "I am no judge of that sort of work. It is intended, I suppose, to represent the three-headed dog, Cerberus—the one that guarded the gates of Pluto's realm in the old mythology. The carving is beautiful."

      Trenmore nodded. "It is that. And now I'll tell you how I came by it. You know it's an ignorant, rude man I am; but hid away somewhere inside me there's a great love for little, pretty, delicate things. And though I've no real education like you, Bobby, I've picked up one thing here and another there, and when I happen on some trifle with a bit of a history it just puts the comether on me, and have it I must, whether or no.

      "Behind that small steel door you saw in the wall of my room I've some amazing pretty toys that I'd not like to part with. I'll show you them later, if you care, and tell you the tales that go with them. Did you read in the paper last month how Thaddeus B. Crane was after dying and all his great collection to go at auction?"

      "I didn't notice."

      "You wouldn't. You'd something worse to think of. But I did; so I remembered this which I had heard the fame of, and to that auction I went three days running until they came to the thing I wanted. ',' it's called, just as you named it like the clever lad you are. It's old, and they say 'twas made in Florence centuries ago. But I'll read you the bit of description Crane had for it."

      He produced a sheet of time-yellowed paper he read. "'Said to have been carved by Benvenuto Cellini for his patron, the Duke of Florence. Its contents have never been examined. The legend runs, however, that the gray dust within it was gathered from the rocks at the gates of Purgatory by the poet Dante, and that it was to contain this dust that the duke required the vial. More probably, from a modern viewpoint, the contents are some sort of poison, which a Florentine duke may well have carried in self-protection or for the destruction of his enemies. The vial itself is of rock crystal and the cap—closed with cement—a peculiarly beautiful specimen of sixteenth century work. It is probably a genuine Cellini. It passed into the hands-' But I'll not be reading the rest. It tells the names of those who have owned it, and the astonishing number of them that died violently or disappeared from the face of God's earth, and no more trace left of them than a puff of smoke from your cigar!"

      Drayton's lips twisted to an involuntary smile.

      "A very extraordinary history," he commented. "Dante, Benvenuto Cellini, and Dust from the Rocks of Purgatory! May I ask what you paid?"

      "Only five hundred. There'd word got about that Crane was no good judge and that there were more copies than originals in his collections. The regular collectors bought shy, and I misdoubt Crane's widow realized the half of what he'd spent on the lot. There was little bidding for this. The tale's too extravagant, and most would not believe it a true Cellini. However, no sooner had I got it and walked out of the salesrooms than a gray-haired old party came running after me and caught me by the sleeve.

      "'And is it you that bought the Cerberus?' he demands. 'It's myself that did,' I conceded him. 'And will you sell it again to me?' 'I will not,' says I. 'Not for twice what you paid for it?' inquires he with a cunning look in his eye that I did not like. 'No, I'll not,' says I. 'Nor for two or four times what I paid for it. I'm a gentleman collector. I am not a dealer. I bought this for myself and I will keep it. Good day to you, sir,' says I, and with that I walked on.

      "But do you believe he would accept my polite rebuff? Not he. He runs along by the side of me, taking three steps to my one. 'If you'll not sell it me you'll be sorry,' he keeps on saying. 'It should be mine. I went to buy it, but my chauffeur ran over a man on Broadway. Confound the fool! The police took my chauffeur and delayed me till I came too late for the bidding. I'd have had it if it cost me five thousand, and that's what I'll give now, if you'll sell.'

      "By then I'd taken a real dislike to the man with his persistence and his sharp eyes. In plain words I told him if he'd not desist from following me about I'd be calling an ambulance, for he'd be needing one shortly. 'You can join in the hospital the poor devil your car murdered,' says I. And at that he takes a squint up at me sideways, like I was an elephant he'd just discovered himself to be walking with and him thinking all along I was just a small pigling, and he turns white and stops dead in his tracks. The poor midget! I'd not have laid my little finger on him for fear of crushing him entirely. But for all that he gets courage to shake his fist and call after me, 'You'll be sorry for this. You don't know what you've bought and I do! I'll have it yet!'

      "Well, I thought no more of the silly madman that day. But on the next I received a letter that came to me at the hotel where Viola and me were then stopping. It said that if I'd not sell for ten thousand I'd sell for worse than nothing, and to put an ad in the paper if I'd changed my mind.

      "Of course, I did nothing. But from that day I've had no peace at all. Twice my baggage has been gone over, and last week two thugs tried to hold me up in Jersey City. The poor devils are in the hospital this minute; but they could not or would not tell the name of the man who employed them.

      "There have been two more letters which I'll show you presently, and the last was addressed here, showing how the fellow has watched and spied on my movements. In it he declares that my very life shall not stand in the way, but he must have the Cerberus. I'm a man of peace, and it's fair getting on my nerves.

      "Last night they must have tried again, and it's a wonder I was not murdered in my bed! You've come in the nick of time to save me from nervous prostration, Bobby, lad, for it's little they can do against the two of us, your brains and my brawn!"

      Now it was Drayton's turn to laugh. The picture of Terence Trenmore suffering from nervous collapse, or caring two straws for all the crooks and madmen in America, was too much for his friend. He laughed and laughed, while the Irishman stared at him in a grieved surprise which only added fuel to his hysterical mirth.

      "And why," demanded Trenmore indignantly, "why wouldn't I be thinking of you when I want a lad at my side? Jimmy, my host here, is a fine man, but not the one to consult on such a Mysterious matter, life meaning to him just business, with his club for diversion, heaven help him! And were he not a distant cousin of my own mother on the O'Shaughnessy side, Jimmy and me would have never become acquainted. And wasn't I meaning to go clear to Cincinnati next week, just to be asking your advice? And does that list of folk who have had ill luck from the Cerberus—does that mean nothing at all? I tell you, I need your help and counsel, Bobby, and it's glad I am that you are here to give it."

      Drayton suddenly perceived that the Irishman had been entirely serious throughout. The tale was not, as he had believed, a mere excuse seized on with intent to delude him, Drayton, into feeling that he might be of value as an ally. Hidden away in one secret corner of his friend's giant heart there dwelt a small, imaginative and quite credulous child. "Dust from the Rocks of Purgatory!" It was that which had fascinated Trenmore, and it was that more than any dread of midnight assassins which had driven him to appeal to his lawyer friend. What he wished was moral, not physical, backing.

      "But, Terry," said Drayton, sobered and really touched by this unexpected demand upon him, "if the thing bothers you so much why not sell and be rid of it?"

      Trenmore's mouth set in a straight, obstinate line. "No, I'll not," he declared. "They cannot bully a Trenmore, and Viola says the same. But if I could I'd lay hands on the old villain that's after it the way he'd trouble us no more, so I would!"

      "Have you tried the police?"

      "To be sure."

      "How about the auction rooms where you bought it? If this persecutor of yours is a collector, they might know him there by description."

      "That I tried myself before I troubled the police. One young fellow remembered the old villain, and remembered him asking my name. They keep a register at the salesrooms. But as for the villain's own name, no one there seemed to know it."

      "Well, then—" Drayton cast about in his mind somewhat vaguely. Then an idea struck him. "By

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