that have been stealing milk bottles. That's about my size,
these days." He turned around, however, before he had gone many steps
and came back.

"Wardrop has been missing since yesterday afternoon," he said. "That is,
he thinks he's missing. We've got him all right."

I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and taking a car down-town, I
went to the _Times-Post_ office. The Monday morning edition was already
under way, as far as the staff was concerned, and from the waiting-room
I could see three or four men, with their hats on, most of them
rattling typewriters. Burton came in in a moment, a red-haired young
fellow, with a short thick nose and a muggy skin. He was rather stocky
in build, and the pugnacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness
of his eyes.

I introduced myself, and at my name his perfunctory manner changed.

"Knox!" he said. "I called you last night over the 'phone."

"Can't we talk in a more private place?" I asked, trying to raise my
voice above the confusion of the next room. In reply he took me into a
tiny office, containing a desk and two chairs, and separated by an
eight-foot partition from the other room.

"This is the best we have," he explained cheerfully. "Newspapers are
agents of publicity, not privacy--if you don't care what you say."

I liked Burton. There was something genuine about him; after Wardrop's
kid-glove finish, he was a relief.

"Hunter, of the detective bureau, sent me here," I proceeded, "about the
Fleming case."

He took out his note-book. "You are the fourth to-day," he said. "Hunter
himself, Lightfoot from Plattsburg, and McFeely here in town. Well, Mr.
Knox, are you willing now to put yourself on record that Fleming
committed suicide?"

"No," I said firmly. "It is my belief that he was murdered."

"And that the secretary fellow, what's his name?--Wardrop?--that he
killed him?"

"Possibly."

In reply Burton fumbled in his pocket and brought up a pasteboard box,
filled with jeweler's cotton. Underneath was a small object, which he
passed to me with care.

"I got it from the coroner's physician, who performed the autopsy," he
said casually. "You will notice that it is a thirty-two, and that the
revolver they took from Wardrop was a thirty-eight. Question, where's
the other gun?"

I gave him back the bullet, and he rolled it around on the palm of his
hand.

"Little thing, isn't it?" he said. "We think we're lords of creation,
until we see a quarte