if talking to
himself, "Why do you think that?"

"Because for vy it vos so gentle! The' staircase, she haf not
sqveak as she haf sqveak when I haf creep away!"

The Chief turned to the plain clothes man.

"You can take him away now, officer," he said.

Barney sprang up trembling.

"Not back to the cell," he cried imploringly, "I cannot be alone.
Oh, gentlemen, you vill speak for me! I haf not had trobble vith
the police this long time! My vife's cousin, he is an elder of
the Shool he vill tell you 'ow poor ve haf been..."

But the Chief crossed the room to the door and the detective
hustled the prisoner away.

Then the official whom they had seen before came in.

"Glad I caught you," he said. "I thought you would care to see
the post mortem report. The doctor has just handed it in."

The chief waved him off.

"I don't think there's any doubt about the cause of death," he
replied, "we saw the body ourselves..."

"Quite so," replied the other, "but there is something
interesting about this report all the same. They were able to
extract the bullet!"

"Oh," said the Chief, "that ought to tell us something!"

"It does," answered the official. "We've submitted it to our
small arms expert, and he pronounces it to be a bullet fired by
an automatic pistol of unusually large calibre."

The Chief looked at Desmond.

"You were right there," he said.

"And," the official went on, "our man says, further, that, as far
as he knows, there is only one type of automatic pistol that
fires a bullet as big as this one!"

"And that is?" asked the Chief.

"An improved pattern of the German Mauser pistol," was the
other's startling reply.

The Chief tapped a cigarette meditatively on the back of his
hand.

"Okewood," he said, "you are the very model of discretion. I have
put your reticence to a pretty severe test this morning, and you
have stood it very well. But I can see that you are bristling
with questions like a porcupine with quills. Zero hour has
arrived. You may fire away!"

They were sitting in the smoking-room of the United Service Club.
"The Senior," as men call it, is the very parliament of Britain's
professional navy and army. Even in these days when war has flung
wide the portals of the two services to all-comers, it retains a
touch of rigidity. Famous generals and admirals look down from
the lofty walls in silent testimony of wars that have been. Of
the war that is, you will hear in every cluster o