out why he wants one. And while I was at
it, I called the police, on the upstairs phone. I had to use your name;
I deepened my voice and talked through a handkerchief."

"You--" Blake Hartley jumped as though bee-stung. "Why did you have to
do that?"

"You know why. I couldn't have told them, 'This is little Allan Hartley,
just thirteen years old; please, Mr. Policeman, go and arrest Frank
Gutchall before he goes root-toot-toot at his wife with my pappa's
Luger.' That would have gone over big, now, wouldn't it?"

"And suppose he really wants to shoot a dog; what sort of a mess will I
be in?"

"No mess at all. If I'm wrong--which I'm not--I'll take the thump for
it, myself. It'll pass for a dumb kid trick, and nothing'll be done. But
if I'm right, you'll have to front for me. They'll keep your name out of
it, but they'd give me a lot of cheap boy-hero publicity, which I don't
want." He picked up his pencil again. "We should have the complete
returns in about twenty minutes."

* * * * *

That was a ten-minute under-estimate, and it was another quarter-hour
before the detective-sergeant who returned the Luger had finished
congratulating Blake Hartley and giving him the thanks of the
Department. After he had gone, the lawyer picked up the Luger, withdrew
the clip, and ejected the round in the chamber.

"Well," he told his son, "you were right. You saved that woman's life."
He looked at the automatic, and then handed it across the table. "Now,
let's see you put that firing pin back."

Allan Hartley dismantled the weapon, inserted the missing part, and put
it together again, then snapped it experimentally and returned it to his
father. Blake Hartley looked at it again, and laid it on the table.

"Now, son, suppose we have a little talk," he said softly.

"But I explained everything." Allan objected innocently.

"You did not," his father retorted. "Yesterday you'd never have thought
of a trick like this; why, you wouldn't even have known how to take this
pistol apart. And at dinner, I caught you using language and expressing
ideas that were entirely outside anything you'd ever known before. Now,
I want to know--and I mean this literally."

Allan chuckled. "I hope you're not toying with the rather medieval
notion of obsession," he said.

Blake Hartley started. Something very like that must have been flitting
through his mind. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it
abr