hold you in this case till we get further evidence.' And he
says: 'I didn't do it. If I had thought of it, maybe I would. But I
didn't do it.'"

The investigator and Bat Scanlon walked up the path; as they reached
the door, it was opened for them, and they saw the burly form of Osborne
standing in the hall.

"How are you?" greeted the headquarters man, good-humoredly. "Saw you
from the window, and felt so honored that I'm letting you in myself." He
shook Ashton-Kirk by the hand, warmly enough. "Kind of a surprise to see
you down here."

The two men entered and the door closed behind them; then they made
their way into the sitting-room, following Osborne. The body of the
murdered man was no longer there; the rug stiffened with blood was gone;
the room was now quiet and conventional--a peaceful calm filled it.

Ashton-Kirk's keen glance went about; he talked steadily to Osborne all
the while, but Bat Scanlon observed that not a single detail of the
apartment escaped him. The headquarters man wore a look of frank
curiosity as he, too, watched the investigator, and saw him fixing the
position of things in his mind.

"Just where did the body lie when the policeman arrived on the night of
the crime?" he asked.

"Right here," and Osborne indicated the spot "The head was here. The
wound was made with a candlestick--quite a heavy one; and the blow was
meant to stop the victim for good."

"Any further marks on him besides the one on the head?"

"No," said Osborne. "We looked for something of that kind, but there was
none."

Ashton-Kirk went to a window overlooking the stretch of green sod at the
side of the house.

"I understand you found the candlestick just under this?"

"Yes. The window was a little open; and I guess, after he'd finished the
job, the murderer wanted to get rid of the weapon. So he dropped it
outside."

"Nothing to be had here," said Ashton-Kirk, after a few moments' study
of the sitting-room. "At least not just now."

He threw up the window and stepped out, followed by Scanlon; standing
upon the paved walk the investigator looked about. The Burton house,
like the others on Duncan Street, sat fairly in the center of a plot of
ground perhaps two hundred feet square. Along the division fence between
that and the next house was a stretch of smooth sod, with grass, still
green. At one place upon this was a sort of rose arbor, the browned,
hardy shoots of a perennial twining thickly around it.

"T