the
stock-keeper for a new bulb to replace one that was burned out?"

"You're right," said O'Toole. "Why?"

"For the reason that this bulb is a burned-out bulb," said Mr. Gubb.

And so it was. The inner surface of the bulb was darkened slightly,
and the filament of carbon was severed. O'Toole took the bulb and
examined it curiously.

"That's odd, ain't it?" he said.

"It might so seem to the non-deteckative mind," said Mr. Gubb, "but to
the deteckative mind, nothing is odd."

"No, no, this ain't so odd, either," said O'Toole, "for whether Hen
Smitz grabbed the bulb before Wiggins changed the new one for the old
one, or after he changed it, don't make so much difference, when you
come to think of it."

"To the deteckative mind," said Mr. Gubb, "it makes the difference
that this ain't the bulb you thought it was, and hence consequently it
ain't the bulb Mister Wiggins got from the stock-keeper."

* * * * *

Mr. Gubb started away. The crowd followed him. He did not go in search
of the original bulb at once. He returned first to his room, where he
changed his undertaker disguise for Number Six, that of a blue
woolen-shirted laboring-man with a long brown beard. Then he led the
way back to the packing house.

Again the crowd was halted at the gate, but again P. Gubb passed
inside, and he found the stock-keeper eating his luncheon out of a tin
pail. The stock-keeper was perfectly willing to talk.

"It was like this," said the stock-keeper. "We've been working
overtime in some departments down here, and Wiggins and his crew had
to work overtime the night Hen Smitz was murdered. Hen and Wiggins was
at outs, or anyway I heard Hen tell Wiggins he'd better be hunting
another job because he wouldn't have this one long, and Wiggins told
Hen that if he lost his job he'd murder him--Wiggins would murder Hen,
that is. I didn't think it was much of anything but loose talk at the
time. But Hen was working overtime too. He'd been working nights up in
that little room of his on the second floor for quite some time, and
this night Wiggins come to me and he says Hen had asked him for a
fresh thirty-two-candle-power bulb. So I give it to Wiggins, and then
I went home. And, come to find out, Wiggins sewed that bulb up with
Hen."

"Perhaps maybe you have sack-needles like this into your stock-room,"
said P. Gubb, producing the needle Long Sam had given him. The
stock-keeper took the needle and exa