me the man
had probably been murdered in his sleep, and I turned away to look more
carefully about the room.

Already the influence of my training in the District Attorney's office
was asserting itself, and I was looking for evidences of the criminal,
even while sorrowing for my friend. At the first glance, as I have said,
nothing had appeared changed in the room or its contents since I had
left it the previous night, or rather that morning, but now as my eye
fell upon the cards scattered over the centre table, and the score-card
still undisturbed, I remembered the money that Van Bult had placed upon
the table and that was still there when I left. It was now gone. I
looked on the floor where it might have fallen, but could see it
nowhere; some one had taken it or perhaps it was in the dead man's
pocket; but that would be determined at the right time, and I passed it
by for further study of the room.

Just at this time Ned Davis, whom I had not observed on first entering,
crossed over to me from a seat by the piano, and asked what I made of
it, adding some expression of horror at the terrible event. I told him I
could form no theory as yet; then he called my attention to the fact
that a plaid ulster that White was in the habit of wearing in rough
weather, and which had been lying across a chair near the window, had
disappeared.

I remembered it, also, but its disappearance seemed unaccountable upon
any theory, and I concluded it would be found somewhere in the room or
hall and dismissed it from my mind for the time. I asked Davis if he had
seen either Littell or Van Bult, but he said no; that he had been
aroused about seven o'clock by a maid servant of the house who was
almost hysterical, and only managed to tell him to go down and "see what
was there." He had dressed hastily and come down to find things as I saw
them, only that there was no one present at that time but a policeman
and the landlady, the former standing guard over the door, which was
open, and the latter sitting in a half-dazed state on a chair in the
hall. That shortly afterwards another officer had appeared with the man
to whom I had been talking, he presumed a detective, and he had then
been admitted to the room, but not questioned in any way or permitted to
touch anything. He said Benton had also appeared at the door with the
detective and officer, but had rushed off again somewhere, and that he
had seen no one else, except a few of the inmates of