detail,
just the work the police ought to be able to do. Ex-Police
Commissioner McGuire thinks that too."

He waved his hands with a gesture of finality and Brasher knew
that he was dismissed. With a look of awe and reverence he
departed, shaking his head wonderingly.

Professor Brierly was also shaking his head. There was a puzzled
frown on his fine features. He said:

"I shall have to recast my opinion about the man or men who are
responsible for these two murders. I said he or they are clever
but not subtle. I was wrong, there is a subtlety about it, a
devilish ingenuity about it." He shook his head once more, the
puzzled frown becoming deeper. "There are things about these two
murders that do not fit and it seems hard to make them fit. I
wonder--" He shook his head violently as if to clear it of an
unpleasant or hazy thought.

Hale began, slowly, not knowing how to broach the subject:

"Was there something, Professor, that you were holding back in
Justice Higginbotham's camp, something you knew, that you did not
care to tell."

Professor Brierly looked at him quizzically.

"You _are_ an acute young man, Hale--or, was I so obvious?"

He sat for a long time thoughtfully tearing to bits the small
sheets on which he had made his notes of the examination of the
ropes and twine. He continued slowly:

"What the microscope showed me this morning increased my doubts
about the matter. The trail left by the murderer in Miller's Folly
seemed clear enough. Finding the rope, however, instead of
clarifying the case makes it more puzzling. What we found on the
rope and twine does not at all accord with the rope itself and its
implication.

"I find an analogous situation in New York. Everything seemed
clear enough. Someone entered Schurman's apartment. That person
was either rather skilled in human anatomy or he was told how to
hit Schurman. The victim was struck in such a way that it could
easily have been mistaken for simple asphyxia or the kind of
asphyxia that you would find in a body that has been hung by the
neck. Everything seemed simple enough until I found the apple."

"The apple?" queried McCall.

"Yes, the apple of which the murderer almost took a bite. It was a
green apple. The murderer was about to take a bite, but he changed
his mind. It was too hard, or too bitter, or too sour." He changed
the subject abruptly. "And what will the District Attorney of New
York County do about August Schurman's murder