"What's he want, Joe?"
"I don't know. Says his business is confidential and urgent. Wouldn't say what. Looks harmless though, in spite of he drove up in a Rolls Royce with a chauffeur."
"Well, send him in."
Ward busied himself with a sheaf of morning mail and miscellaneous police circulars. Presently a small, immaculate looking individual with an apologetic, breathless air entered the room and approached the desk timidly. Silently, without even so much as a nod, he laid a newspaper clipping before the Chief of Police. Adjusting his glasses, Ward reached for the item and glanced through it hastily:
MAN KILLED AT EL GATOS GRADE CROSSING
El Gatos, November 1. The decapitated body of a man tentatively identified as J. Peter Peck, address unknown, was discovered by a company track walker early this morning on the South West Pacific grade crossing half a mile south of the town of El Gatos. Local police believe that the man was killed some time after midnight, possibly by the San Francisco milk train. Identification was established by a wallet containing papers of the deceased.
Ward laid the clipping on his desk, rolled a bulbous wad of chewing tobacco into one cheek and expelled it into a spitoon some ten feet away with a resounding plunk. Wiping his chin inexpertly with the back of a grizzled hand, he looked up and eyed his visitor interrogatively.
"I clipped it from last night's San Francisco Bulletin," the latter explained quietly. "I drove practically all night so as to be here this morning."
"You're a relative?"
The stranger smiled weakly and placed a pair of painfully thin hands on the desk as though to steady himself.
"Well, no, not exactly; that is, somewhat," he answered obscurely.