well time, thash what I did! One whale of
a good time! It was _some_ night--a wet night--believe me--a wet
night--awful wet. Never had so mush fun--never! We got ole Doc
Harrison stewed to the gills--hones' we did--stewed like--like
prunes--apricots! Ho! Thash what we did!"

"Guess he wasn't the only one," observed Carroll grimly. "Now, look
here, King. You're pretty drunk yet, but maybe you can get this
through your noodle. There's been some nasty business, and you may, or
may not, know something about it, though I don't believe you do, for
you're so pickled now that you must have been loading up ever since
last week. But you've got to answer some questions--when you're
able--and it's a question of holding you here or--taking you with us.
How about it?"

"Look here!" snarled King, and his voice rang out with sudden energy.
"Who you talkin' to?"

"Now take it easy, Harry," advised Thong. "We're talking to you, of
course."

Harry King seemed to begin the process of sobering up. His eyes lost
something of their bleary, misunderstanding look, and took on a
dangerous glint. The detectives knew him for a spendthrift, who had
been in more than one questionable escapade. He had a violent temper,
drunk or sober, once it was roused, and it did not take much liquor to
make him a veritable devil. Though after his first wild burst he
became maudlin and silly. King came of a good family, but his
relatives had cast him off after his midnight marriage to an actress of
questionable morals, with whom it was not a first offense, and he now
lived, after his own peculiar fashion, on the income of an estate
settled on him in his better days by an aunt. Now and then he managed
to get larger advances than the stipulated sum from a rascally lawyer,
who took a chance of reimbursing himself a hundred per cent. when Harry
King should come to the end of his rope--a time which seemed not far
off, if the present were any indication. He was to inherit the bulk of
his fortune when he became thirty-five years of age. He was now
thirty-three, but the pace he was going and keeping made his chances of
living out the stated allotment seem meager.

"I'm talking to you, Harry, my boy," went on the detective, "and I
advise you, for your own good, to keep a civil tongue in your head. If
you don't, you may get into trouble. There's been a murder--"

"A murder!" King's voice was more certain now.

"Yes. You saw the body carried ou