the aloof manner
of the young man.

"Where's your father?" he questioned roughly.

"In bed, naturally," was the answer. "I ask you again: What are you
doing here at this time of night?"

Burke shook his shoulders ponderously in a movement of impatience over
this prolonging of the farce.

"Oh, call your father," he directed disgustedly.

Dick remonstrated with an excellent show of dignity.

"It's late," he objected. "I'd rather not disturb him, if you don't
mind. Really, the idea is absurd, you know." Suddenly, he smiled very
winningly, and spoke with a good assumption of ingenuousness.

"Inspector," he said briskly, "I see, I'll have to tell you the truth.
It's this: I've persuaded my wife to go away with me. She's going to
give all that other sort of thing up. Yes, we're going away together."
There was genuine triumph in his voice now. "So, you see, we've got
to talk it over. Now, then, Inspector, if you'll come back in the
morning----"

The official grinned sardonically. He could not in the least guess just
what had in very deed happened, but he was far too clever a man to be
bamboozled by Dick's maunderings.

"Oh, that's it!" he exclaimed, with obvious incredulity.

"Of course," Dick replied bravely, though he knew that the Inspector
disbelieved his pretenses. Still, for his own part, he was inclined
as yet to be angry rather than alarmed by this failure to impress the
officer. "You see, I didn't know----"

And even in the moment of his saying, the white beam of the flashing
searchlight from the Tower fell between the undrawn draperies of the
octagonal window. The light startled the Inspector again, as it had done
once before that same night. His gaze followed it instinctively. So,
within the second, he saw the still form lying there on the floor--lying
where had been shadows, where now, for the passing of an instant, was
brilliant radiance.

There was no mistaking that awful, motionless, crumpled posture. The
Inspector knew in this single instant of view that murder had been done
here. Even as the beam of light from the Tower shifted and vanished from
the room, he leaped to the switch by the door, and turned on the lights
of the chandelier. In the next moment, he had reached the door of the
passage across the room, and his whistle sounded shrill. His voice
bellowed reinforcement to the blast.

"Cassidy! Cassidy!"

As Dick made a step toward his wife, from whom he had withdrawn a little
in his col