so. Look, here is
the wound in the temple, just above the left eye. And it has gone clean
through the head. Poor old Dad! Poor, misguided old Dad! How I hate that
woman Paula and all her wiles and ways! If any one's at fault in this
dastardly business, Mr. Deland, you can count upon _her_! Her father
swung for a similar crime (she doesn't know I know that) and if she has
done this terrible thing she, too, shall swing, as he did! Whoever has
done this cruel, wicked thing, Mr. Deland, shall be brought to justice,
if I have to scour the world over for the murderer."

"Ah--who? That is the question, my friend," returned Cleek quietly,
stooping over the bowed white head with its thatch of snowy hair, and
tracing the path of the bullet through it in his mind's eye. "H'm! Went
through here and came out-- Gad! here's the puncture! Right here! So
that somewhere in this room that bullet has lodged itself, and when that
is found we shall have our finger upon the pulse of this dreadful
tragedy more surely than we know.... Heigho! It's two-thirty, and in
this semi-darkness little to be done until the morning sends us its
kindly rays. So we must leave things as they are for the present, and
later go over the whole thing with clear heads and rested minds....
Sergeant, I put you in charge. A man outside of the window there,
please, and another one in this room, and still another outside the
door, and if any one tries to get in or out, blow your whistle and I'll
be with you in a jiffy.... Come, Mr. Duggan. You're looking terribly
white and fagged. Let's have a whisky-and-soda--if you'd be so good as
to extend your hospitality so far--and then I'll make myself a
shake-down in the next room, if you've no objection. I've given orders
for no one to be allowed to leave the house until morning and until
parole is given to do so, so you need have no fear of one of the
murderers escaping."

"I-- I---- What's that you say?" stammered out Ross, swinging round and
looking at Cleek with drawn brows and flashing eyes. "You've given
orders in _my_ house! I say, you know, this is a bit thick; and--and who
the dickens do you think would have done the thing in this place, may I
ask? You're rather overstepping the bounds of common hospitality, Mr.
Deland, in your role of private detective. And I must ask you to leave
the ordering of things to _me_."

"And that, I am afraid, is exactly what I can't do, my friend," replied
Cleek serenely, with a crooked