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a move on. Then go back to the office and wait for me.”
    Burke saluted and disappeared.
    Heath then addressed one of the two men who had been inspecting the grilles of the front windows.
    â€œHow about that ironwork, Snitkin?”
    â€œNo chance, Sergeant,” was the answer. “Strong as a jail—both of ’em. Nobody got in through those windows.”
    â€œVery good,” Heath told him. “Now, you two fellows chase along with Burke.”
    When they had gone the dapper man in the blue serge suit and derby, whose sphere of activity had seemed to be the fireplace, laid two cigarette butts on the table.
    â€œI found these under the gas-logs, Sergeant,” he explained unenthusiastically. “Not much; but there’s nothing else laying around.”
    â€œAll right, Emery.” Heath gave the butts a disgruntled look. “You needn’t wait, either. I’ll see you at the office later.”
    Hagedorn came ponderously forward.
    â€œI guess I’ll be getting along, too,” he rumbled. “But I’m going to keep this bullet awhile. It’s got some peculiar rifling marks on it. You don’t want it specially, do you, Sergeant?”
    Heath smiled tolerantly.
    â€œWhat’ll I do with it, Captain? You keep it. But don’t you dare lose it.”
    â€œI won’t lose it,” Hagedorn assured him, with stodgy seriousness; and, without so much as a glance at eitherthe District Attorney or the Chief Inspector, he waddled from the room with a slightly rolling movement which suggested that of some huge amphibious mammal.
    Vance, who was standing beside me near the door, turned and followed Hagedorn into the hall. The two stood talking in low tones for several minutes. Vance appeared to be asking questions, and although I was not close enough to hear the conversation, I caught several words and phrases—“trajectory,” “muzzle velocity,” “angle of fire,” “impetus,” “impact,” “deflection,” and the like—and wondered what on earth had prompted this strange interrogation.
    As Vance was thanking Hagedorn for his information Inspector O’Brien entered the hall.
    â€œLearning fast?” he asked, smiling patronizingly at Vance. Then, without waiting for a reply: “Come along, Captain; I’ll drive you down town.”
    Markham heard him.
    â€œHave you got room for Dinwiddie, too, Inspector?”
    â€œPlenty, Mr. Markham.”
    The three of them went out.
    Vance and I were now left alone in the room with Heath and the District Attorney, and, as if by common impulse, we all settled ourselves in chairs, Vance taking one near the dining-room door directly facing the chair in which Benson had been murdered.
    I had been keenly interested in Vance’s manner and actions from the moment of his arrival at the house. When he had first entered the room he had adjusted his monocle carefully—an act which, despite his air of passivity, I recognised as an indication of interest. When his mind was alert and he wished to take on external impressions quickly, he invariably brought out his monocle. He could see adequately enough without it, and his use of it, I had observed, was largely the result of an intellectual dictate. The added clarity of vision it gave him seemed subtly to affect his clarity of mind. 1
    At first he had looked over the room incuriously and watched the proceedings with bored apathy; but duringHeath’s brief questioning of his subordinates, an expression of cynical amusement had appeared in his face. Following a few general queries to Assistant District Attorney Dinwiddie, he had sauntered, with apparent aimlessness, about the room, looking at the various articles and occasionally shifting his gaze back and forth between different pieces of furniture. At length he had stooped down and inspected the mark made by the bullet on the wainscot; and once he had gone to the