"Oliver Dalton: Meet me secretly, nine to-night, in house No. -- West Thirty-sixth street, about mail robberies.

Old King Brady."

Here was a startling surprise for the detectives.

"Did you send that message?" asked Harry, of his partner.

"No. It's a forgery!" declared the old detective.

"I thought so."

"Whoever sent it knew the broker was going to have us run down the thieves who were robbing him."

"As Ronald Mason admitted to us that he practically ran the business, he must have known that we were going to work up the case. Our chief told Mr. Dalton we would. Therefore it must be another example of Mason's perfidy."

"Come to the telegraph office. We'll see if we can trace the party who sent this despatch."

They hastened from the Union Club.

By dint of diligent inquiry the Bradys learned which office the forged despatch had been sent from, and went there.

Showing the message to the girl operator, Old King Brady asked:

"Do you remember sending this message?"

"Distinctly," she replied, "on account of the odd signature."

"Can you describe the party who sent it?"

"Oh, yes. I'm acquainted with the gentleman."

"Indeed! What was his name?"

"Mr. Ronald Mason."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, indeed."

The Bradys thanked the girl and departed.

"Gradually we are getting at the bottom of this affair," said Old King Brady.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MISSING MAN FOUND.

The Bradys kept Ronald Mason closely shadowed for several days. They saw that he was living the mechanical life of a sober business man.

He was at his desk every morning at nine o'clock, and departed at five in the evening for home, in a cab. He did not depart from the house during the night, and received no callers there.

But the detectives did not relax their vigilance.

They had a deep-rooted suspicion that Mason had been working a plot to get rid of his uncle so he could inherit part of Mr. Dalton's money, and win the broker's daughter for his bride without any opposition.

Old King Brady figured that he was bound to show his hand sooner or later.

Nor did his judgment err.

At the end of the week a telegraph boy delivered a message at the broker's residence, about nine o'clock at night.

Within a few minutes after the lad departed the front door opened and a man in shabby clothes, with a beard on his face, cautiously emerged.

He carried a big bundle under his arm.

He glanced up and down the deserted street and seeing n.o.body, he hastily ran down the steps and stole rapidly away.

Safely hidden in the area of an empty house opposite, the Bradys observed him, and a smile crossed Harry's face as he nudged his partner and whispered:

"There's Mason, now!"

"Very clumsily disguised!" Old King Brady commented.

"If he were not up to some mischief, he would not be so careful to conceal his ident.i.ty," Harry remarked, drily.

They let the young man get some distance ahead before they ventured out in the street. Then they separated, to avoid attracting special attention.

Mason walked down Eighth avenue to Thirty-fourth street and boarded a horse-car going east. The detectives followed it afoot until they reached Broadway, and at Herald Square they secured a cab.

The chase then became comparatively easy.

Mason rode to the East river before he alighted and finally made his way afoot along the river front until he reached a pier.

The detectives were close behind him, as yet unseen.

Going out on the pier, Mason paused and whistled.

Instantly a man climbed up over the string piece from a rowboat in which sat a solitary individual, close to the piles.

As it was a clear night, the detectives had no trouble to see that the man who joined Mason was a negro.

And then they recognized him as Sim Johnson, the valet.

For a few moments the pair held a whispered conversation, and then climbed down the piles and got into the rowboat.