the lifting roar of Delaney's voice in the depths of the great
mansion.

The room became charged and surcharged with electricity. A crackling
sounded as Drew's feet glided inch by inch over the silk rug. The storm
outside whined and synchronized with the rise and fall of the great
voice shouting "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello, you!"

The trouble-man turned. His hand reached upward and lifted the
hard-rubber receiver from the hook. His lids fluttered toward Loris.
His eyes softened with memories. "I'm glad I didn't do it!" he hissed
across the room. "Good-by, lady--good-by!"

"Be careful!" snapped Drew, pressing the revolver firmly against the
prisoner's right side. "Be careful! This is a hair trigger!"

The trouble-man smiled a twisted, wan smile as he turned his head
toward the transmitter and said huskily:

"Hello! Hello! You big copper! Shout on! See how loud you can curse me!
That's it. That--is--it!"

Drew heard Delaney's voice rise in indignation. The taunt had spurned
him to greater effort. The metallic diaphragm of the receiver roared
and clicked. It echoed the voice. It stopped. It vibrated again. It
reached a reed-like tune of high-pitched anger. The prisoner closed his
eyes and stiffened. He pressed the receiver directly over his ear. He
drew back on the chain and to one side. Drew's face darkened with
suspicion. It was too late. The detective had time to spring away as a
cone of lurid light and flame shot out from the telephone diaphragm and
splashed across the prisoner's set face. A sharp detonation racked the
perfumed air of the room. Smoke wreathed about the astonished
Inspector's head, and floated upward toward the ventilator.

Cuthbert Morphy's muscles relaxed. He spun, sank to his knees, then
pitched forward across the rug with a bullet in his brain. Drew
untwisted the chain with a wrist flip, sprang forward toward the
cheval-glass, and stamped his foot down upon the smoking telephone
receiver as if it were the head of a rattlesnake.

He turned with clear light striking out from his eyes. He nodded toward
the leaning form of the girl and the erect one of the captain. He
divined in seconds how the murder of Montgomery Stockbridge had been
accomplished. The full series of events and clues flashed through his
brain. It was like an orderly array seen at a picture show.

Cuthbert Morphy, guised as a trouble-hunter in the employ of the
telephone company, had devised a single-shot pistol out of a telep