and he was going to do it.

He pushed his way into the apartment, followed closely by Maloney and
the other policemen, who dragged along the unhappy Howard. The dead man
still lay where he had fallen. Captain Clinton stooped down, but made no
attempt to touch the corpse, merely satisfying himself that Underwood
was dead. Then, after a casual survey of the room, he said to his
sergeant:

"We won't touch a thing, Maloney, till the coroner arrives. He'll be
here any minute, and he'll give the order for the undertaker. You can
call up headquarters so the newspaper boys get the story."

While the sergeant went to the telephone to carry out these orders,
Captain Clinton turned to look at Howard, who had collapsed, white and
trembling, into a chair.

"What do you want with me?" cried Howard appealingly. "I assure you I've
had nothing to do with this. My wife's expecting me home. Can't I go?"

"Shut up!" thundered the captain.

His arms folded, his eyes sternly fixed upon him, Captain Clinton stood
confronting the unfortunate youth, staring at him without saying a word.
The persistence of his stare made Howard squirm. It was decidedly
unpleasant. He did not mind the detention so much as this man's
overbearing, bullying manner. He knew he was innocent, therefore he had
nothing to fear. But why was this police captain staring at him so?
Whichever way he sat, whichever way his eyes turned, he saw this
bulldog-faced policeman staring silently at him. Unknown to him, Captain
Clinton had already begun the dreaded police ordeal known as the "third
degree."

CHAPTER IX.

Fifteen minutes passed without a word being spoken. There was deep
silence in the room. It was so quiet that one could have heard a pin
drop. Had a disinterested spectator been there to witness it, he would
have been at once impressed by the dramatic tableau presented--the dead
man on the floor, his white shirt front spattered with blood, the
cringing, frightened boy crouching in the chair, the towering figure of
the police captain sitting sternly eyeing his hapless prisoner, and at
the far end of the room Detective Sergeant Maloney busy sending hurried
messages through the telephone.

"What did you do it for?" thundered the captain suddenly.

Howard's tongue clove to his palate. He could scarcely articulate. He
was innocent, of course, but there was something in this man's manner
which made him fear that he might, after all, have had something to