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those four had looked on death, sudden death, in most of its more horrible forms.
    But never in all their lives had they seen a sight like this one. Within the furnace a blackened, fleshless horror grinned out at them, through billows of murky yellow smoke and flame.
    They had found the body of Anise Halloran.

V
Do-re-mi
(11/15/32—6:30 P.M.)
    “I NSPECTOR PIPER?” SAID THE voice at the other end of the line, very sweetly. “Oh, yes, Inspector Piper. He’s resting quietly, madam.”
    “Oh, he is, is he? Well, you listen to me, young woman. That resting quietly stuff may go well with most of your telephone enquiries, but it won’t do for me. I want you to put down your magazine and take that gum out of your mouth and go to the floor nurse and find out how the Inspector is, do you hear me?” Miss Withers was rapidly losing her temper.
    “But, madam …”
    “Don’t you ‘but’ me! Or I’ll come over there to Bellevue Hospital and put you over my knee and spank you.”
    There was a gasp, and then a long silence. Then the voice came again, still sweet.
    “Inspector Piper is in the operating room now, madam. They say he has a comminuted fracture of the skull, and severe concussion, but that he is doing as well as can be expected. His heart is stronger. But of course he isn’t conscious yet. He may not be conscious for a day or more, the doctors say. Is there anything else?”
    The harshness went out of Miss Withers’ voice. “No, thank you, child. Good night.” It took her three trials to get the telephone back on its hook, and her face was drawn with weariness as she slowly rose to her feet.
    Outside in the hall she could hear Detective Allen’s voice, hysterical and high. He was evidently talking to the police photographer. “… and believe it or not, we used three fire extinguishers before we could draw it out of the furnace. There won’t be much for you to take pictures of….”
    They passed onward, toward the cellar stair, and Miss Withers pulled her sailor down over her ears. It was a traditional gesture of defiance with her, a sort of nailing her colors to the mast-head.
    She was resolved not to go near the cellar as long—as long as the body was down there. Miss Withers had seen enough of violence and sudden death for one evening. There remained the classrooms of the second floor to search. The police would do it eventually, but Miss Withers was a firm believer in the idea of striking while the iron is hot. The Inspector had always said that more sleuthing could be done in the first twenty-four hours after a murder than in all the time following. Here she was, given the opportunity of being almost an eye-witness to the murder—and as yet not one ray of light penetrated the mystery.
    She started for the stairs again, and then thought better of it. She had little respect for the intelligence of the police when Oscar Piper was in charge of a case, and none at all now that he lay on the operating table in the emergency ward at Bellevue.
    “I’ve got to make hay while the sun shines,” she resolved. Acting on impulse, she went back into the Principal’s office. Somewhere there ought to be a record of the home addresses and telephone numbers of the faculty of Jefferson School. It might be in Mr. Macfarland’s desk—no, there was no sign of it. She came back into the outer office and leaned over Janey Davis’ typewriter desk.
    She tried the upper right-hand drawer … to find only stationery, stamps, an old letter or two, and a package of lemon mints. The second disclosed a small red pasteboard file box, the object of her search.
    But Hildegarde Withers had no eyes for the address file now—for just behind it, wrapped in a gold and blue scarf, was a businesslike little automatic pistol.
    She picked it up gingerly. The Inspector had once showed her the workings of an automatic, if she could only remember. She adjusted her pince-nez carefully, and then scrutinized the weapon. “This—and