ked up at the
man in the chair opposite him. "Okay so far?"

Paul Cordell nodded numbly.

"'At the time stated above,'" Kirk, continued, reading from the paper,
"'Mr. Cordell stopped briefly in front of my desk. He seemed very angry
about something. He said, "Hi, Alma. You think the Prof's through making
love to my wife?" Before I could say anything, he turned away and walked
into the corridor leading to the laboratory. I continued my work until
about five minutes later when Mr. Cordell came running back into the
office and told me to call the police, that Professor Gilmore and Mrs.
Cordell had been murdered.

"'Since there is an automatic closer on the corridor door, I did not see
Mr. Cordell enter the laboratory itself. I do know, however, that
Professor Gilmore and Mrs. Cordell were alone in the laboratory less
than ten minutes before Mr. Cordell arrived, as I had just left them
alone there after taking some dictation from my employer. Since I went
directly to my desk, and since there is no entrance to the laboratory
other than through my office, I can state with certainty that Mr.
Cordell was the only person to enter the laboratory between 5:00 that
afternoon and 5:55 when Mr. Cordell came out of the laboratory and told
me of the murders.

"'I hereby depose that this is a true and honest statement, to the best
of my knowledge, that it was given freely on my part, and that I have
read it before affixing my signature to its pages. Signed: Alma K.
Dakin.'"

* * * * *

There was an almost ominous crackle to the document as Lieutenant Kirk
folded it and returned it to his pocket. Paul Cordell appeared utterly
stunned by what he had heard and his once stiffly squared shoulders were
slumped like those of an old man.

"I don't have to tell you," Kirk said, "that the only window in that
laboratory is both permanently sealed and heavily barred. No one but you
could have murdered those two people. You say you saw them killed by
some kind of a gun. Yet a qualified physician states both deaths were
caused by a terrific blow from a blunt instrument. We found a lot of
things around the lab you could have used to do the job--but nothing at
all of anything like a projectile fired from a gun."

The prisoner obviously wasn't listening. "B--but she--she lied!" he
stammered wildly, "All I said to Alma Dakin was a couple of words--three
or four at the most--about not working too hard. Why should s