and I'll put you where you'll have time to
study a lot of rocks and do a lot of thinkin' before bein' funny again.
Now, you get out! Get into that car as quick as you can, if you know
what's good for you!"

Hoping I could retrieve the revolver later, and realizing that nothing
could be gained by staying there longer, I started toward the car. I
had hardly taken five steps when I heard a joyful yell and turned to
see Robinson struggling to his feet, the muddy revolver in his hand.

"Here's your cuff-link," he cried. "Before I'm through you'll find
that this ain't a cuff-link, but a necklace for the neck of that pretty
sister of yours. You, with your Socialists and your cuff-buttons,
tryin' to keep me from gettin' what I go after. Well, it didn't work!
It don't usually, when I go after somethin'. It didn't work, did it?"

"No. It didn't work," I admitted.

"Oh, I don't blame you," Robinson went on, mollified by his success and
the soft tone of my reply; "I'd of done the same thing in your place,
if my sister was a murderer."

The word "murderer" acted like an electric shock on me.

"She didn't do it, I tell you; she couldn't have done it!"

"Now, Mr. Thompson," Robinson began in a soothing voice. "These things
happen in even the best families sometimes. You mustn't take it too
hard."

"Will you let me examine that revolver?" I demanded.

"Why, no. I can't let you examine it. But I'll examine it when I get
ready."

"Will you be so good as to do it now?" I asked.

"What for?"

"Because it may not have been fired at all. That would make things
look entirely different, you know."

The inspector took out the gaudy handkerchief again and wiped the mud
off the barrel and the grip. I had shoved the pistol barrel foremost
into the bank so the muzzle was filled with clay. It was Jim's--a "32"
automatic.

"It won't be spoilin' any evidence by my cleanin' this mud off the
outside, because you put that there yourself," the detective said,
wiping the pistol carefully. He released the spring and pulled out the
clip. I saw a cartridge at the top of the clip and exclaimed:

"There! You see? That gun was never fired!"

The inspector looked at me with a pitying smile.

"Now, that's where you're wrong, Mr. Thompson. You see, you don't know
the inner workings of an automatic. When a gun like this is fired, it
discharges the old shell and a new cartridge comes to the top of the
clip. There are only th