ying without question.

As he hung up the receiver,

"The man's in hospital, all right," he said, "broken collar-bone. I was
just in time to prevent them from letting the other go. They're to hold
him on a charge of throwing his pal out."

"I did that," said Dick. "At least, I scared the bird off his perch."

Again Finucane rang.

"And I'll send this one," he said, "to his nest."

When Melchard had been removed, Dick gave his three listeners a rapid
and, as their faces and exclamatory comment testified, a vivid sketch of
his adventure from his detection of the perfume which pervaded the
alcove in Randal's study and the corroboration of his suspicions given
by Melchard's attempted alibi in the letter to Amaryllis, to the time
when his train pulled out of Todsmoor station; and, in the course of his
narrative, he laid on the table, each at its historic point, his _pieces
de conviction_.

Having told how Amaryllis had fainted at the sight of Ockley with the
knife-point protruding from the back of his neck, he extracted the
Webley from his overcrowded pocket.

"That," he said, "is the man's gun, which Miss Caldegard found for me."

Later, he produced Mut-mut's baag-nouk, laying it, talons upward, beside
the Webley.

"That was strapped to his hand. I gave him the first of my two shots
before he jumped, the second I put through his head as he lay scrabbling
in the car."

At this point there entered the room a stout, bearded man with careworn
face and irritable expression. Finucane rose respectfully, but the
new-comer made a motion waiving ceremony, sat in the nearest chair, and
became one of the audience.

Dick, never observing the addition, continued his tale in a voice
monotonous with fatigue.

In their turn he added to the display the Malay's revolver, with which
he had captured Melchard, and Melchard's automatic.

And, after telling them how he had forced his prisoner to drink,

"I couldn't bring the bottle--no room," he said, patting his shrinking
pocket. "The tangle-foot all went down the pussyfoot's neck, so I left
'Robbie Burns' in the car. By the way, don't forget to ring up about
that car. Old Mut-mut cut the cushions to ribbons; that bit of evidence
might save my neck."

Finucane smiled pleasantly.

"You seem to have left a trail of coroner's inquests behind you," he
said.

"All in the day's work," said Dick. "But not, thank God! in to-night's."

And when he had carried his audience past Tod