on.

"Ah, Sid!" exclaimed Drew close up to the gilded bars. "Ah, Sid. Ah,
Sid!" he repeated as the bird sprang to the bottom of the cage and set
this jumping up and down at the end of the spring.

"No go," said Delaney. "This black parrot don't like our looks."

Drew fingered the cage. He tested the spring. He stooped and glanced
underneath. He tapped the belfry. It was of inlaid wood. It rang solid.
"No use," he said. "This is all, all right. Let's get to the other
matters before the clews get cold. Look everywhere for a possible
trapdoor or a secret panel. Test the walls. Move the book-cases. Turn
the pictures. Lift up the rugs. Then put everything back like you found
it. Fosdick will be on the job with both feet and the Homicide Squad,
before we know it. We haven't much time." Drew glanced at his watch as
Delaney started by moving out one of the book-cases.

The detective ignored the body which lay upon the floor near the little
table. He was holding his investigation down to outside facts, and
bringing them to bear upon the crux of the matter. In this way, he
believed, he would secure better results. He did not want to be blinded
by an impossibility at the beginning. His first glance at Stockbridge
sufficed to assure him that the lethal instrument which had felled the
magnate was not in evidence. The bright light from a score of globes
would reveal any such object as a revolver or rifle. No one of the
servants had seen anything. They still were peering into the room like
men and women who had lost all they owned. Stockbridge, despite his
temper and sins, had been a good master to those who served him without
questioning.

Drew glared at his watch for a second time, in preoccupation. He strode
to the library door and beckoned a hooked finger toward the butler who
towered over the other servants.

"You!" he exclaimed. "You didn't obey orders. You didn't stay where you
were told to stay! Why did you leave this door at all?"

"S' 'elp me, sir, I didn't, Mr. Drew. If I did it wasn't farther than
the foyer or the downstairs steps. I took very careful pains to call
the second-man, sir, when I went after you."

Drew's eyes smoldered with inner fire. "I told you," he repeated, "I
told you to stay by this door and not leave it--even for a minute. You
went after the second-man, by your own admission. You went to the foyer
hall. You went to the staircase leading down to the lower part of the
house. In other words, you