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death and send it t’ my office so it can go in to the mainland with the corpse tonight.”
    O’Rourke had donned a bathrobe, and he looked up from his slippers in surprise. “Where d’you think I’ll get a death certificate? Nobody died here in two years.”
    “Make one up out o’ your own head, then,” pronounced the chief. At that moment a hollow siren outside made the windowpanes rattle like castanets. “There’s the Avalon now—I got to get back and open up the store—”
    “Wait,” demanded Hildegarde Withers. “There’s more to it than that. This man Roswell—or whatever his name is—died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. It isn’t exactly any of my business—”
    “Hear, hear,” offered Dr. O’Rourke.
    “But all the same, it is my honest opinion that this is a case for a coroner.”
    Chief Britt smiled, sleepily. “We ain’t got a coroner, ma’am. When there’s any need we use the one over to Long Beach, on the mainland. I’ll send the corpse over to him and if he wants to, he can have an inquest.”
    “And by that time it will be everlastingly too late!”
    Miss Withers was intense. “All the people who were on that plane when this man died will be scattered.”
    “Yes, ma’am, but—”
    “But nothing! Hasn’t this town got a mayor or anything besides you?”
    “Yes, ma’am. There’s Mayor Peters, and we got a city manager, too, name of Klein. Both of ’em out in Klein’s boat after sea bass and won’t be back for a couple of days anyway.”
    Britt stowed his blue bundle away in a pocket of his coat. He began to show that he was impatient to wind up the matter.
    “Now listen,” he approached Miss Withers. “You keep saying you think this fellow was killed. Do you see any reason why you think so?”
    “She doesn’t see reasons—she smells ’em,” offered Dr. O’Rourke.
    Miss Withers sniffed. “Chief Britt, haven’t you ever had a flash of intuition—a premonition—a hunch, in other words?”
    The chief blinked his tiny, cunning eyes at her. “Yes, ma’am. In poker games. And it costs me money every time.”
    The crowd which lingered outside the little infirmary was increasing steadily, and Miss Withers noticed an admixture of newcomers with suitcases and light coats swung over their arms, as the chief opened the door again.
    “G’bye, ma’am, g’bye, Doc,” he spoke politely. Then he stopped short and said, “Hello.”
    Through the open doorway a shaft of noon sunshine poured into the dark little room, spreading a track of gold across the floor and touching the bared face of the dead man with a semblance of life.
    Then the shaft of sunlight was blotted out again, blocked by the square shoulders of a man so tall that he had to stoop in order to enter the doorway.
    His face, Miss Withers instantly noted, was handsome, almost too handsome, in a soft way. The eyes were the only jarring feature, for they showed momentarily a flickering, evasive look. Then he smiled apologetically, and the eyes were like other eyes.
    “Excuse me,” he said. His voice had an Eastern tang that was almost harsh among these drawling Californians. “They were saying on the pier that somebody had died, but they didn’t know who it was. I expected a friend to meet me here, and he didn’t show up. I wondered—”
    “Take a look for yourself,” said the chief hospitably. “Letters in his pocket identify him as being named R. Roswell. Know him?”
    The newcomer removed his Panama and moved toward the body. Immediately he became ten years older than his oddly young face, for his hair was streaked with gray. As yet he had no eyes for the doctor or the two women, but stared at the figure which lay on the operating table as if he expected it to rise and salute him.
    For a long minute he stared at the face of the dead man. Then he turned toward the others, his handsome face expressionless.
    “I was afraid of that,” he said slowly. “It’s my friend—and his full name is