look for a possible hiding place. You,
butler, stand across that doorway! Don't move from there!" Drew wheeled
and stared at the white faces of the servants which were framed in the
somber curtains of the opening to the hall.

The detective swung back. He rounded the large table with slow steps.
He bent down. One knee touched the rug. He reached and grasped the
magnate's stiff arm. He worked it like a hinge. He felt of the muscles.
They were rigid.

Rising, Drew again tested the air of the library. He glanced at
Delaney, who was opening the book-case doors.

"What do you smell?" he asked sharply.

The operative turned and sniffed with widening nostrils.

"It's powder!" he said. "Gunpowder, Chief."

"Sure?"

"It's kind-a peculiar--at that."

"Explain yourself--be clear!"

Delaney scratched his head. "I'd say, Chief, it was smokeless powder.
It don't smell like the ordinary kind."

"I saw smoke when I came in!"

"That smokeless stuff smokes. It ain't altogether what they call it.
Remember the shootin'-gallery at Headquarters? There's smoke there when
the police are practicing with them steel-jacketed bullets."

"You're right," said Drew. "Keep on looking about. I'm getting on.
Stockbridge was shot at very close range behind and under the left ear.
The weapon used was a small-caliber revolver. The bullet is undoubtedly
lodged in the lower brain. Powder stains are in his hair. The opening
is clotted shut. He fell forward. In falling he knocked over the little
table with its load of ash-trays, match-boxes, telephone, cigar butts
and the whisky bottle and the glass. He's been dead some time."

"I 'e'rd no shot!" cried the butler from the doorway.

Drew wheeled. "You wouldn't," he said sharply. "Delaney," he added,
"say, Delaney, get out your note book and pencil. I want to put down
everything we can think of before I send for the coroner. We'll take a
complete record. This thing is diabolical. You see nothing?"

"Nothing," echoed Delaney as he slammed a book-case door shut, dusted
his fingers and reached in his pocket. "There's nobody planted in this
room--that's a fact, Chief. That's what gets me. How was the murder
done?"

"Speculation is useless--now! Get ready for notes."

"I'm ready, Chief."

The detective strode across the library rugs and snapped on the wall
switch by jabbing at a mother-of-pearl button. Each time he jabbed,
more lights came on. The room flooded with soft glowing from concealed