He looked up apprehensively, at the sympathetic face of his companion.

“It’s very unwise to tell this.  I suppose it’s a State’s prison offence to deceive about murder.  But you understand our position:  we can’t afford to let it become gossip.  I’ll pay this girl anything to go to Europe or the Antipodes!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” suggested Shirley, thoughtfully.  “Let her stay.  You would like to bring the culprit to justice, if it can be done without dragging your name into it.  If he has planned this, he has executed other schemes.  She certainly would not remain the machine if she were the guilty one.  Why not employ a good detective?”

“I did, but hesitated to tell you.  I secured Captain Cronin, of the Holland Agency.  He’s managed everything so far—­I was too rattled myself.  But, I wonder why he isn’t here now?  He was to return as soon as he visited the garage.”

As Van Cleft spoke, the butler approached with hesitation.

“Beg pardon, sir.  But you are wanted on the telephone, sir.”

“All right, Hoskins.  Connect it with the library instrument.”

Van Cleft lifted the receiver nervously, and answered in an unsteady voice.

“Yes—­This is Van Cleft’s residence.”

Silence for a bit, then the wire was busy.

“What’s that?  Captain Cronin?  What about him?  Let me speak to him.”

Shirley was alert as a cat.  Van Cleft was too dazed to understand his sudden move, as the criminologist caught up the receiver, and placed his palm for an instant over the mouthpiece.

“Ask him to say it again—­that you didn’t understand.”  Shirley removed his hand, and obeyed.  Shirley held the receiver to his ear, as the young man spoke.  Then he heard these curious words:  “You poor simp, you’d better get that family doctor of yours to give you some ear medicine, and stop wasting time with the death certificate.  I told you that Cronin was over in Bellevue Hospital with a fractured skull.  Unless you drop this investigating, you’ll get one, too.  Ta, ta!  Old top!”

The receiver was hung up quickly at the other end of the line.

Shirley gave a quick call for “Information,” and after several minutes learned that the call came from a drug store pay-station in Jersey City!

The melodious tones were unmistakably those of the speaker who had used the wire from faraway Brooklyn where the house had been burned down!  It was a human impossibility for any one to have covered the distance between the two points in this brief time, except in an aeroplane!

Van Cleft wondered dumbly at his companion’s excitement.  Shirley caught up the telephone again.

“Some one says that Cronin is at Bellevue Hospital, injured.  I’ll find out.”

It was true.  Captain Cronin was lying at point of death, the ward nurse said, in answer to his eager query.  At first the ambulance surgeon had supposed him to be drunk, for a patrolman had pulled him out of a dark doorway, unconscious.