"Miss Fulton might remember about it."

"She did mention that," put in Braley; "it was unlocked."

"All the same," insisted Greenleaf, "Morley's got to come back here.

Wouldn't you say so?" This question was addressed to Bristow.

The telephone bell rang in the dining room. The chief went to answer it.

"What's that?" Those in the living room heard him. "You? I'm the chief of police. Where are you now? Oh, I see. Come up here, will you? There's been a murder here. Mrs. Withers. Right away? All right; I'll wait for you."

He came back to the living room.

"That was Mr. Henry Morley," he said, "Didn't leave town last night. What do you think of that?"

CHAPTER II

"SOMETHING BIG IN IT"

Before the question was answered the coroner arrived. While Chief Greenleaf told him the circ.u.mstances confronting them, Dr. Braley telephoned for a trained nurse for Miss Fulton. In the absence of anybody else to perform the unpleasant task, the doctor went back to take up with the bereaved girl the matter of telegraphing to her family and the details of preparing the murdered woman's body for burial as soon as would be compatible with the plans of the coroner.

"I wonder, Mr. Bristow," suggested Greenleaf, "if I couldn't walk up to your place with you and talk this thing over."

"Glad to have you," agreed Bristow.

The crowd on the porch and in the street began to disperse slowly after the chief had told them none of them could be admitted. In small groups, they made their way to porches or into houses where they lingered, speculating, wondering, advancing impossible theories.

Why had death singled _her_ out? Who would ever have suspected that there had been in her life any foothold for tragedy? The secrecy with which she had been struck down, the ease of the murderer's coming and going safely, roused their resentment. They sympathized with themselves as well as with the dead woman.

Confusedly, but at the same time with striking unanimity, they felt that this was not merely a mystery, but a mystery made ugly and shocking by base motives and despicable agents. In common with all mankind, they resented mystery. It emphasized their own dependence on chance. They began to guess at the best method for capturing the guilty.

The chief of police and the lame man had reached the porch of No. 9.

There Bristow picked up from a table a sc.r.a.pbook and a bundle of newspaper clippings. Following him into the living room, Greenleaf brought a paste pot and a pair of shears which the other evidently had been using in placing the clippings in the big book. He put them down on a table in one corner near Bristow's typewriter.

"Still figuring 'em out, I see," he said grimly.

He referred to Bristow's habit of reading murder mysteries in the newspapers and working them out to satisfactory solutions. That was Bristow's way of amusing himself while set down in Furmville for the long struggle to overcome the tuberculosis with which he was afflicted. In fact, as a result of this recreation, he had become known to Greenleaf, who had visited him several times.

He had rendered the captain considerable a.s.sistance in a minor case shortly after his arrival in the town, and Greenleaf was really amazed by the correctness of the lame man's solutions of most of the murder cases chronicled. He knew that Bristow had been right on an average of nine times out of ten, often clearing up the affairs on paper many days or even weeks ahead of the authorities in various parts of the country.

Bristow had his records in his sc.r.a.pbooks to prove his contentions. Under each clipping descriptive of a baffling murder he had written a brief outline of his solving of the case and dated it, following this with the date of the correct or incorrect solutions by the authorities.

"But now," the chief added, as they sat down before the open fire, which earlier had fought against the chill of the cool May morning, "you can work one out right on the ground. And I'll be mighty glad to have your help--if you will help."

"Of course," said Bristow. "I'll be more than glad to make any suggestions I can."

The chief went out on the porch and called across the yard of No. 7 to one of his men on guard at No. 5:

"Simpson, when a young man--name's Morley--gets there and asks for me, tell him to come up here to Number Nine."

He came back and referred to Bristow's offer of help:

"For instance?"

"Well," Bristow answered, "as we see it now, there are three possibilities: Campbell, or Morley, or some unknown man or woman, coloured or white, bent on robbery."

"So far, though, we haven't found any signs of robbery."

"I have."

"What were they?"

"The middle, third and little fingers of Mrs. Withers' left hand were scratched, badly scratched, as if rings had been pulled from them by force. And there was a deep line on the back of her neck. It looked black just now, but it was red when it was inflicted. It was too thin to have been made by a finger, but it might have been caused by somebody's having tugged at a chain about her neck until it broke."

"The thunder you say! I didn't notice any of that."

"I'll show you the marks when we go back there."

"But," objected Greenleaf, "I know Mr. Campbell. He's not the sort to steal. And I don't suppose Morley is."

"They say the same thing about bank presidents," Bristow replied with a slight smile, "but some of them get caught at it, nevertheless."

"Yes; but this is different--unless the murdered woman had extremely valuable jewelry."

"That's true. Besides, if the front door was unlocked all night, or, even if somebody knocked at the door and Mrs. Withers answered it, there is your third possibility, any ordinary robbery and murder."

"I believe that's what will come out," Greenleaf said, his troubled face showing his worried consciousness of inability to handle the situation; "but how will we--how will I prove it?"

"Morley and Campbell can make their own statements."

Bristow, going to the dining room door, called toward the kitchen:

"Mattie!"

Replying to his summons, a middle-aged coloured woman appeared.

"Mattie, didn't I hear Perry tell you yesterday that he was to go to work this morning for Mrs. Withers, 'making' her garden?"

"Yas, suh," answered Mattie, still breathing heavily from her hurried return from No. 5.

"Has he been around this morning?"

"Naw, suh."

"Do you know where Mrs. Withers' servant lives?"