"Mother," he called. "The Chief has just 'phoned me that they have the biggest case for me that I ever handled. I must go down at once."

His mother came to the door of the room. "Can't you even wait for a bite of lunch?" she questioned.

"No," he explained, "it is a hurry call. The Chief says we cannot lose a minute in getting started. I'll have to stop in somewhere after I see the Chief."

Kissing his mother good-bye, Morgan hurried around to the elevated station. Fifteen minutes later he opened the Chief's office door.

"Sit down, Morgan," said the Chief, waving his hand toward a chair.

"I've got a case here that'll make even you go some."

As Morgan sat down the Chief gathered up some typewritten sheets from his desk, and continued; "I didn't like to break up the first day you've had off in a long time, Morgan, but there was a murder on Sheridan Road last night--or early, this morning, to be exact--that has put a real mystery up to the Department. It'll need a man like you to solve it--if it can be solved. The newspapers had big headlines this morning, and the public will be watching us on account of the peculiar nature of the crime."

"I saw something about it in my paper this morning," said Morgan.

"There were no details, however. The notice probably caught the last edition with little more than the fact that a murder had been committed."

"Well," exclaimed the Chief, "it's one of the biggest mysteries we've ever had handed to us. The shot was heard by both the man on the beat and a tenant in the building, but outside of the stories of these two men, and the discovery of a blood stain on a rug in a supposedly empty flat, not another thing has been found. The body is missing, and there is no trace of how it got out of the flat or where it is now. Here is a report of all that we know so far. By the way, your partner Tierney made this report. He happened to be on the job last night, so I told him to stick to it."

The Chief handed the typewritten sheets to Morgan.

"You will note," he went on, "that the man on beat heard a shot at about 2 A.M.; that he met a tenant from the house who said that he had heard sounds of a struggle, a shot, and something like the falling of a body. The police found the flat locked, and after they broke in could find no one on the premises. Nothing was upset, and there were no signs of the struggle, said to have taken place.

Another peculiar thing is that the police even overlooked the bloodstain until the tenant who had heard the shot called their attention to it. Tierney tried to get some more details this morning, but you will find from his report that none of the other tenants admit hearing the shot; that the tenant in the flat across the hall was apparently not at home, and that the janitor says the people who rent the flat in which the trouble occurred, have been away all summer. The only really definite information of any kind comes from this one tenant, Marsh."

"You'll probably find Tierney at the flat, as I sent him back after he had turned in this report. He may have found out something more by now than he could put in that quick report."

"Chief," said Morgan, as he thumbed over the typewritten sheets in his hands, "you say there has been a murder committed here. With this tenant, Marsh, and a patrolman, getting into action so soon after the shot, a body couldn't possibly be moved out of the house--certainly, not without leaving some trace."

"Well?"

"How do we know there was a murder?"

"We don't know--positively," returned the Chief. "But we're not going to take any chances. Even if there wasn't an actual murder, SOMETHING OF A CRIMINAL NATURE WAS PULLED OFF IN THAT FLAT LAST NIGHT. What it was, we're putting up to you to find out. Go to it, Morgan! So long!"

CHAPTER III

INVESTIGATION

Leaving the Detective Bureau, Morgan stopped in a restaurant on Randolph Street for a quick lunch. From there he walked over to State Street and took the motor bus for the scene of the singular event which it was now his duty to investigate. A half-hour later he dropped off the bus at Lawrence Avenue and Sheridan Road. A few steps brought him to the Hillcrest apartments, where he found Tierney waiting on the front steps for him.

"The Chief telephoned me that you would probably be here about this time," said Tierney, after acknowledging Morgan's greeting. "I was on the job last night, and did a little investigating this morning, so the Chief thought you might want to talk things over with me."

Morgan nodded. "All right, let's go up. Can we get into the flat?"

"Sure," answered Tierney. "We put a temporary padlock on this morning, and I have the key."

Without further words the two men climbed the stairs to the apartment on the third floor. Tierney unlocked the padlock and they went in. Inside the entrance hall of the apartment, Tierney turned to Morgan.

"I suppose the Chief has put the case entirely in your hands, so it's up to you what you want to do first."

"We had better go into the front room here," answered Morgan, "and let me get a line on things. About all I know so far is that somebody THINKS a murder has been committed."

"You can't make much out of things as they are, that's a fact,"

a.s.sented Tierney, as they moved into the front room. He dropped into an easy chair close at hand, and pushed his cap back on his head, while Morgan went to one of the front windows and ran the shade to the top. Seating himself where he could get the full benefit of the light from the window, he drew out the typewritten report and read it over carefully.

"This is your report, isn't it, Tierney?" he inquired, folding up the sheets again and replacing them in his pocket.

"You bet; and I put into it every d.a.m.ned thing I know," a.s.serted Tierney. "And that's mighty little," he added. "This is the most mysterious case I ever saw."

There was a pause while Morgan drew a pipe from his pocket and filled and lighted it. Then settling back in his chair, he looked at Tierney. "Got any theories?" he asked.

"No," replied Tierney. "I haven't any theories--but I've got a couple of suspicions."

"Well?"

"One," continued Tierney, "is this flat across the hall. Murphy--that's the man on the beat who heard the shot and investigated--Murphy noticed that in spite of all the racket we made breaking down the door last night, no one in that flat showed any interest. I tried to get in touch with them this morning. Nothing doing. Either they weren't home, or wouldn't answer the bell."

"That looks bad," commented Morgan. "You mentioned in your report that you talked with the janitor. Did he drop anything about them that you didn't think worth while putting in the report?"

"The janitor simply told me that a man and his daughter lived in the flat, and that he thought the man was away a good deal; so he supposed he must be a traveling man. They have always seemed to be quiet people. He has never even seen them have any company."

"That's suspicious, too," declared Morgan. "Normal people usually have SOME company. Is that all?"

Tierney nodded.

"Now," prompted Morgan, "you said you had another suspicion."

"You bet!" exclaimed Tierney, straightening up in his chair. "That guy, Marsh--underneath here."

"'Great minds'," laughed Morgan. "I sort of focused on that man myself after reading your report just now."

"Well, here's the way I look at it," explained Tierney. "When ordinary folks hear fighting and shooting in the middle of the night, they generally stick their heads under the covers and lie close. They don't put on bath robes and run out on the street to be the first to give a report. Then the janitor tells me that he's seen this man around a lot in the daytime--'no visible means of support,'

you might say. Both Murphy and I remember that Marsh referred to his wife. The janitor says he's pretty sure that he never saw any woman around the flat. And when I asked Marsh this morning to let me talk to his wife, he said she was not in."

"You probably noticed in my report that it was this Marsh who showed us the bloodstain under the chair. You know, we came out of the kitchen and caught that guy in the act of pulling a chair over the spot. He said he was replacing the chair where he found it. I've been wondering whether he wasn't actually covering up the spot himself. When we caught him in the act, maybe he just decided to bluff it out."

"The Department didn't make any mistake when they shifted you into the Detective Bureau, Tierney," said Morgan, laughing. "Has the Chief a.s.signed you to any other case for my day off?"

"No," replied Tierney. "When the Chief told me to come back and meet you here I figured he wanted me to stick to this case with you."

"So I thought," agreed Morgan. "But I want to be left alone here for awhile. You scout around and see if you can find out something more about this tenant across the hall. Do you know his name?"

"Clark Atwood, it says on the mail box downstairs."

"All right, Tierney. See what you can look up in this neighborhood.

I'll get in touch with you later. By the way, you had better leave that key with me."