the same question!
I've been here only a few minutes, and I've already told Strawn that I
shall probably be unable to fix the hour of death with any degree of
accuracy."

"Took your time, didn't you, Bonnie?" Captain Strawn greeted his former
subordinate on the Homicide Squad. "Doc says he's been dead between ten
and twelve hours. Since it's nearly ten now, that means Sprague was
killed some time between nine and eleven o'clock last night."

"Better say between nine o'clock and midnight last night," Dr. Price
suggested. "He may have lived an hour or more--unconscious, of course.
For the indications are that he did not die instantly, but staggered a
few steps, clutching at the wound. But of course I shall have to perform
an autopsy first----"

Dundee crossed the room, stepping over the dead man's stick--a swank
affair of dark, polished wood, with a heavy knob of carved onyx, which
lay about a foot beyond the reach of the curled fingers of the stiff
right hand.

"Sprague's hat?" he asked, pointing to a brightly banded straw which lay
upon the top of the cabinet.

"Yes," Strawn answered. "And did you notice the window screen?"

He pointed to the window in front of which the body lay. The sash of
leaded panes was raised as high as it would go, and beneath it was a
screen of the roller-curtain type, raised about six inches from the
window sill. A pair of curved, nickel-plated catches in the center of
the inch-wide metal band on the bottom of the coppernet curtain showed
how the screen was raised or lowered.

Dundee nodded, frowning, and Strawn began eagerly:

"You'll have to admit I was right now, boy. You've sneered at my gunman
theory and tried to pin Nita's murder on one of Hamilton's finest bunch
of people, but you'll have to admit now that every detail of this set-up
bears me out."

"Yes?"

"Sure. This is the way I figure it out: Sprague has good reason to be
afraid he's next on the program. He's nervous. He hops a taxi at his
hotel and comes here--can't stick to his room any longer. Wants a little
human companionship. This crowd here--and I have Miles' word for
it--ain't any too glad to see him, and shows it. He phones for a taxi to
go back to his hotel--about 9:15, that was, Miles says--but decides to
walk down the hill to meet it. Don't want to go back out on the porch
and lie about having had a good time, when he hasn't.... Well, he opens
the front door, or what would be the front door if this was any