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around his neck, and that the car he’d been driving was empty and wrecked a little distance ahead. Couldn’t he have tied the rope to something inside the car, and slipped the noose around his own neck—then jumped overboard and let his car go on and hang him?”
    Miss Withers objected. “What about the rope? It wasn’t tied to the car when they found it. It was hanging loose.”
    “It could have pulled loose with the shock if it wasn’t tied tight,” the Inspector suggested, musingly. “We’ll see what the medical examiner says in his report tomorrow.”
    He stopped, watching Miss Withers, who was sniffing. “Something burning in the kitchen,” she observed.
    “But what could be burning? It’s cook’s night out, and nobody ate in except Gran with her toast and tea a while ago, and whatever cold snack Gretchen was willing to dish up for Lew,” Aunt Abbie cut in.
    “Maybe it isn’t from the kitchen,” Miss Withers conceded. “Probably the drains in these old houses aren’t what they should be.”
    The sound of an auto horn came from outside, again and again. “That must be Taylor and the boys,” said the Inspector. “Miss Withers, will you wait here while I arrange to have Lew Stait taken down to the Morgue to identify his twin? I don’t understand why, if that is the Sergeant outside, he doesn’t come on in …”
    Suddenly Aunt Abbie clapped her hands. “I remember! The terrible, terrible news you told me when I came in made me forget. That’s our cabman out there. Poor dear Hubert never has any money because he spends his allowance for books, and I spent more than I meant to spend shopping. I told the man to wait while I got some money.”
    She moved toward the hall. ‘I’ll run upstairs and get some change.”
    She almost ran into Lew Stait, who was waiting with hat and coat on, to make the trip down to the Morgue. “How lucky,” cried Aunt Abbie. “You’ve saved me a climb upstairs, Lew. I need a dollar, perhaps two, for my cabman. Have you got it to spare?”
    “Of course, Auntie.” Lew’s hand went to his inside coat pocket, fumbled a moment, and then dropped to his hip.
    While the four of them watched, he went through his pockets one by one. “Of all the things to happen!” he said in a dazed whisper.
    “My pocket’s been picked!”
    “Maybe you left it up in your room?” Aunt Abbie was comforting.
    “No, I had it this afternoon. There wasn’t but fifteen or twenty dollars in it. That’s funny.”
    He looked thoughtful. “Maybe I lost it somewhere—though I haven’t been out all afternoon. I distinctly remember having it at noon, though. I wonder”
    Lew stopped short. “I wonder if Laurie could have needed some money and picked the wallet up off my dresser? We often borrowed back and forth, you know. At least, Laurie did.”
    “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” said Aunt Abbie. “But Laurie Stait was untrustworthy about money, and there’s no use hiding it. Oh, he wasn’t dishonest. But he was always running short, and always borrowing and forgetting to return it …”
    “So there was only fifteen or twenty dollars in the wallet? Well, if Laurie did borrow it, that might establish a motive for murder, though a slim one. Because his wallet was missing when his body was found.” Inspector Piper made the announcement boldly, and it seemed to stagger Lew Stait.
    “You mean that my brother might have been killed for what money was in that wallet?”
    Piper nodded. “You see, nobody need have known how much or how little was in the billfold. And he looked as if he had money, you know. Only the means used in this murder don’t make sense with a robbery angle.” He scratched his head—and down the street the wail of a police siren rose as the cab-driver honked his signal again imploringly.
    The Inspector took two dollars from his own billfold. “I’ll take care of your cab, ma’am,” he promised Aunt Abbie. “You can pay me tomorrow. I’ve got some