"And then the trunk. We have traced it easily to the Club House. It was
Benson's own trunk--had been up in his own room, which was locked."

"His own trunk?" repeated Craig, suddenly becoming interested. "How
could anyone take it out, without being seen? Didn't anyone hear
anything?"

"No. Apparently not. None of the other servants seem to have heard a
thing. I don't know how it could have been got out, especially as his
door was locked and we found the keys on him. But--well, it was. That's
all."

We had reached the undertaker's.

The body of Benson was horribly mangled about the head and chest,
particularly the mouth. It seemed as if a great hole had been torn in
him, and he must have died instantly. Kennedy examined the grewsome
remains most carefully.

What had done it, I wondered? Could the man have been drugged, perhaps,
and then shot?

"Maybe it was a dum-dum bullet," I suggested, "one of those that
mushrooms out and produces such frightful wounds."

"But assuming it entered the front, there is no exit in the back," the
sheriff put in quickly, "and no bullet has been found."

"Well, if he wasn't shot," I persisted, "it must have been a blow, and
it seems impossible that a blow could have produced such an effect."

The sheriff said nothing, evidently preferring to gain with silence a
reputation for superior wisdom. Kennedy had nothing better than silence
to offer, either, though he continued for a long time examining the
wounds on the body.

Our last visit in town was to Fraser Ferris himself, to whom the sheriff
agreed to conduct us. Ferris was confined in the grim, dark, stone,
vine-clad county jail.

We had scarcely entered the forbidding door of the place when we heard a
step behind us. We turned to see Mrs. Ferris again. She seemed very much
excited, and together we four, with a keeper, mounted the steps.

As she caught sight of her son, behind the bars, she seemed to gasp,
then nerve herself up to face the ordeal of seeing a Ferris in such a
place.

"Fraser," she cried, running forward.

He was tall, sunburned, and looked like a good sportsman, a clean-cut
fellow. It was hard to think of him as a murderer, especially after the
affecting meeting of the mother and son.

"Do you know what I've just heard?" she asked at length, then scarcely
pausing for a word of encouragement from him, she went on. "Why, they
say that Benson was in town early that evening, drinking heavily and
that that migh