d
at the chief significantly, and tried the door. It was locked.

"Try the back door," directed Chief Arkwright tersely. "If that's
locked we'll go in anyway."

They passed around the house to the rear, and Mr. Birnes laid one
hand upon the door-knob. He turned it and the door swung inward.
Again he glanced at Chief Arkwright. The chief nodded, and led the
way into the house. They stood in a kitchen, clean as to floors and
tables, but now in the utmost disorder. They spent only a moment
here, then passed into the narrow hall, along this to a door that
stood open, and then--then Chief Arkwright paused, staring downward,
and respectfully lifted his hat.

"Always the same," he remarked enigmatically.

Mr. Birnes thrust himself forward and through the door. On the
floor, with white face turned upward, and fixed, staring eyes, lay an
old man. His venerable gray hair, long and unkempt, fell back from a
brow of noble proportions, the wide, high brow of the student; and a
great, snow-white beard rippled down over his breast. Save for the
glassiness of the eyes the face was placid in death, even as it must
have been in life.

Mutely Mr. Birnes examined the body. A blow in the back of the
head--that was all. Then he glanced around the room inquiringly.
Everything was in order, except--except here lay an overturned
cigar-box. He picked it up; two uncut diamonds were on the floor
beneath it. The rough, inert pebbles silently attested the obvious
manner of death which simultaneously forced itself upon the three
men--the cowardly blow of an assassin, a dying struggle, perhaps,
for the contents of the box, and this--the end!

From outside came sharply in the silence the rattle of wheels on the
gravel of the road, and a vehicle stopped in front of the door.

"Sh-h-h-h!" warned the chief.

Some one came along the walk, up the steps and rapped briskly on the
door; the detectives waited motionless, silent The knob rattled
under impatient fingers, then the footsteps passed along the veranda
quickly, and were lost, as if some one had stepped off at the end
intending to come to the back door, which was open. A moment later
they heard steps in the kitchen, then in the narrow hall approaching,
and the doorway of the room where they stood framed the figure of a
man. It was Mr. Czenki.

"There's your man, Chief," remarked Mr. Birnes quietly.

The diamond expert permitted his gaze to wander from one to another
of the