our friend uses, and then
perhaps we can spot our friend. Did you hear the shot?"

"No, sir. There was a noise just when the clock broke like when a steel
girder falls on the sidewalk."

"That noise was just _before_ the clock broke, Bubbles. And it was loud
enough to drown the noise of our friend's gun. Clever work, though, to
_have_ to pull the trigger at a given moment, and to make such a close
shot. Probably had his gun screwed in a vise."

Meanwhile Lichtenstein had extracted from the ruined clock a .45-calibre
bullet of nickel steel. A glance at the grooves made by the rifling of
the barrel from which it had been expelled caused him to raise his
colorless eyebrows and smile cynically.

"New government automatic, Bubbles," he said, "and the funny part of it
is they've only been issued to officers so far, and the factory hasn't
put 'em on sale yet."

"Must have been stole from an officer, then," said Bubbles.

"You steal her jewels from an actress," said Lichtenstein, "her mite
from the widow, its romances from the people, but you don't steal his
side arms from an American army officer. No. Somebody in the factory has
let the weapon that fired this slip out. It doesn't matter--it's just a
little link in the long chain."

He seated himself calmly at the table and set down in black and white
the fact that he had been very nearly murdered by a bullet fired from
the new army pistol. Then he began to gather up the sheets of his
manuscript.

"Now I wonder," he said, "where I can go to finish this document? I
don't want them to 'get' me until I've paved the way for the man that
comes after me. Now then--the secret passage isn't only for the wicked."

Kneeling on the clean hearth, Mr. Lichtenstein caused the ornamental
cast-iron back of the fireplace to swing outward upon a hinge. Reaching
a long arm into the disclosed opening, he unfastened and pushed ajar the
iron back of a fireplace in the next house.

Bubbles, crawling through first, found himself in a somewhat overdressed
pink and blue bedroom. The lace curtains were too elaborate. The room
was luxurious and vulgar. Among the photographs on the centre-table
reposed a champagne-bottle, three parts empty, and two glasses, in which
a number of flies were heavily crawling.

Lichtenstein, having carefully replaced the fire-backs, rose smiling,
and clapped a hand upon Bubbles's shoulder.

"Now then, Bubbles," he said, "push that bell-button by the door four
ti