"Coming down in sheets, Bill. It can't keep this up for very long."
I went over and stood beside him.
"No," I returned; "it can't keep this up. But, rain or sun, our trip is spoiled now."
"For today, yes. But there is tomorrow, Bill."
But, in the sense that Milton Rhodes meant, there was to be no tomorrow: at that moment, in the very midst of the roar and rage of the elements, Destiny spoke, in the ring of a telephone bell—Destiny, she who is wont to make such strange sport with the lives of men. Certainly stranger sport no man had ever known than she was to make with ours.
"Wonder who the deuce 'tis now," muttered Rhodes as he left the room to answer the call.
I remained there at the window. Of that fateful conversation over the wire, I heard not so much as a single syllable. I mast have fallen into a deep revery; at any rate, the next thing I knew there was a sudden voice, and Milton Rhodes was standing beside me again, a quizzical expression on his dark features.
"What is it, Bill?" he smiled. "In love at last, old tillicum? Didn't hear me until I spoke the third time."
"Gosh," I said, "this is getting dreadful! But"
"Well?"
""What is it?"
"Oh, a visitor."
I regarded him for a moment in silence.
"You don't seem very enthusiastic."
"Why should I be? Some crank, most likely. Mast be, or he wouldn't set out in such a storm as this is."
"Great Pluvius, is he coming through this deluge?"
"He is. Unless I'm mighty badly mistaken, he is on his way over right now."
"Must be something mighty important."
"Oh, it's important all right—to him," said Milton Rhodes. "But will it interest me?"
"I'll tell you that before the day is done. But who is the fellow?"
"Name's Scranton—Mr. James W. Scranton. That's all I know about him, save that he is bringing us a mystery—a terrible, horrible, scientific mystery he called it."
"That," I exclaimed, "sounds interesting."
It was patent, however, that Milton Rhodes was not looking forward to the meeting with any particular enthusiasm.
"It may sound interesting," he said; "but will it prove so? That is the question, Bill. To some people, you know, some very funny things constitute a mystery. We must wait and see. Said he had heard of me, that, as I have a gift (that is what he called it, Bill, a gift) of solving puzzles and mysteries, whether scientific, psychic, spooky or otherwise—well, he had a story to tell me that would eclipse any I ever had heard, a mystery that would drive Sherlock Holmes himself to suicide. Yes, that's what he said, Bill—the great Sherlock himself to suicide."
"That's coming big!" I said.
Rhodes smiled wanly.
"We haven't heard his yarn yet. We can't come to a judgment on such uncertain data."
"Scranton," said I. "Scranton. Hold on a minute!"
"What is it now?"
"Wonder if he belongs to the old Scranton family."
"Never heard of it, Bill."
"Pioneers," said I. "Came out here before Seattle was ever founded. Homesteaded down at Puyallup or somewhere, about the same time as Ezra Meeker. It seems to me"
"Well?" queried Milton Rhodes after some moments, during which I
