of the employer's death, that
spoke when he said,

"I got up this morning late with a throat like the back of a chimney.
Lord! I never wanted a drink so bad in my life--had to have one. The
chink leaves my breakfast for me Sundays; but I knew I couldn't eat till
I'd had one. So I--so I--"

It was as though some recollection fairly choked off his voice. I
finished for him.

"So you went in there--" I pointed at the study door, "and found the
body."

"Naw! How the hell could I? I told you--locked. I crawled up on the
roof, though; huntin' a way in, and I looked through the skylight. There
he was. On the floor. His eyes weren't open much, but they was watchin'
me--sort of sneerin'. I come down off that roof like a bat outa hell,
and scuttled over to Vandeman's where his chink was on the porch, I
bellerin' at him. I telephoned from there. For the bulls; and the
cor'ner; and everybody. Gawd! I was all in."

I caught one point in the tale.

"So the way into the study is through the skylight, Hughes?" and he
shook his head vaguely, fumbling his lips with a trembling hand as he
replied,

"Honest to God, Cap'n, I don't know. I never tried. I gave just one look
through it, and--" He broke off with a shudder.

"Get a ladder," I commanded. "I want to see that skylight."

While he was gone on his errand to the shed, I investigated the outer
walls of the study with the torch, hunting some break in their solidity.
They were concrete; a hair-crack would have been visible in the electric
glow; there was no break. Then, as he placed the ladder against the
coping, I climbed to the roof and stepped across its firmness to the
skylight. I looked down.

Worth, kneeling on the hearth, was laying a fire in the corner grate. As
he did not glance up, I knew he had not heard me. Evidently the study
had been built to resist the disturbance of sound from without. That
meant that the report of the revolver inside had not been heard by any
one outside the walls.

Directly below me was the library table and upon its top a blue desk
blotter; a silver filagreed inkstand stood open; penholders, pencils,
paper knife were on a tray beside it, one pen lying separate from the
others with a ruler, upon the blotting pad; books and a magazine neatly
in a pile. The walls, as I circled them with my eyes, were book-lined
everywhere except for the grate and the two doors.

Then I inspected the skylight, frame and glass, feeling it over with my
hand