none at all."

"Just the same, Chief----"

"The trouble with you," broke in Drew severely, "the trouble is, that
you are forcing a conclusion to meet your own suspicions. The Germans,
with the exception of a small clique, are behaving very well in this
country at the present time. In other words, the most of them are good
Americans and sane."

"That walley-sham?"

"He is not even under consideration! Did you notice him?"

"Sure, Chief!"

"Anything strike you as peculiar?"

"N--o."

"There were tears in his eyes--the only ones shed in that house for
Stockbridge--outside of the daughter."

Delaney gulped. "I didn't see them," he said frankly.

"No! Well, I did--and when he wasn't expecting me to see them. A woman
is never wholly lost who can blush, or a man who can shed tears."

"Sounds like good deduction," admitted the operative. "But then, Chief,
there are a lot of fine actors in this world. I think there has been
some in this case."

"This case, Delaney," Drew said, "is like many others which appear at
first impossible of solving. All things can be solved by first
principles. Give me all the facts and I'll give you the answer to any
riddle. The answer will come! Don't try to write your plot until you
have words to form your story. Don't make the mistake of forcing an
answer to father a wish. In other words, Delaney, best of friends, we
haven't all the facts we are going to get in this case and therefore it
is idle to attempt to deduce who shot Stockbridge!"

"Or how he was shot, Chief?"

"It's almost the same thing. Both answers will come with hard work and
plenty of it. We must keep along the main stem. Truth is a tree with
many branches. It rises from the roots named cause, and reaches the top
called effect. It springs from motive up to crime in one straight stem.
We must trim away the branches and the false-work, and then we can see
the trunk."

"There's one I'd like to trim right now," said Delaney, pausing in his
snow-caked stride.

"Which one?" asked Drew.

"That noise in the library like a cat getting its tail twisted."

"I can explain that!"

"It's been driving me to drink, Chief."

"The telephone company, Delaney, have a device they call a howler. They
cut this device in on the wire when a receiver is left off the hook. It
is simply a high-frequency current generated for the purpose of
vibrating the receiver's diaphragm until somebody hears the noise and
puts the receiver back on t