what it had done the trick. Might have been from a black-jack?" and he
glanced questioningly at the detectives.

Carroll shook his head in negation.

"That'll crack a skull, but it won't draw blood--not if it's used
right," and he brought from his hip pocket one of the weapons in
question--a short, stout flexible reed, covered with leather, the end
forming a pocket in which was a chunk of lead.

"I'll gamble it wasn't one of _them_," said Carroll.

"Maybe not," assented the doctor. "Let's look a bit further."

He glanced at the floor about the body, peered around the edge of a
showcase, underneath which there was a space for refuse--odds and ends,
discarded wrapping paper and the like--a place into which neither of
the detectives had, as yet, glanced. Dr. Warren uttered an
exclamation, and drew out a metal statue, about two feet high.

It was that of a hunter, standing as though he had just delivered a
shot, and was peering to see the effect. The butt of his gun projected
behind him, and as Dr. Warren moved the statue into the light of the
jewelry store chandeliers, they all saw, clinging to the stock of the
gun, some straggling, white hairs.

"That's what did it!" exclaimed the county physician. "I'll wager,
when I try, I can fit that gun butt into the depression of the
fracture. The burglar--or whoever it was--swung this statue as a club.
It would make a deadly one, using the foot end for a handle," and Dr.
Warren waved the ornament in the air over the dead woman's head to
illustrate what he meant.

"Don't!" muttered Darcy in a strained voice.

"Don't what?" asked the physician sharply.

"Use the statue that way."

"Why not?"

"Well--er--I--we were going to buy it for our new home. But now--
Oh, I never want to see it in the house! I couldn't bear to look at
it--nor could she!"

"She? We? What do you mean?" asked Carroll quickly. "Say, do you
know something about this killing that you're keeping back from us?"

He took a step nearer Darcy--a threatening step it would seem, from the
fact that the jewelry worker drew back as if in alarm.

"No, I don't know anything," said Darcy in a low voice.

"Then what's this talk about the statue--not wanting it in the
house--_whose_ house?"

"The house I hope to live in with my wife--Miss Amy Mason," answered
Darcy, and he spoke in calm contrast to his former excitement, "We are
going to be married in the fall," he went on. "I had asked Mrs. Darcy
to set that statue aside for me. Miss Mason admired it, and I planned
to buy it. We had the place all picked out where it would stand.
But--now--"

He did not finish, but a shudder seemed to shake his frame.

"It would be a rather grewsome object to have around after it had
killed the old lady," murmured the reporter. "But are you sure it did,
Doc?"

"Pretty sure, yes. I never make a statement, though, until after the
autopsy. No telling what that may develop. I'll get at it right away.
I guess you remember that Murray case," he went on, to no one in
particular. "There they all thought the man was murdered, when, as a
matter of fact he had been taken with a heart spell, fell downstairs,
and a knife he had in his hand pierced his heart."

"That wasn't your case, Doc," observed Carroll.

"No, it was before my time. But I remember it. That's why I'm saying
nothing until I've made an examination. Better 'phone the morgue
keeper," he went on, "and have them come for the body."

"Have you--have you got to take her away?" faltered Darcy.

"Yes. I'm sorry, but it wouldn't do--here," and the doctor motioned to
the glittering array of cut glass and plate. "You won't keep the store
open?" he inquired.

"No. I'll put a notice in the door now," and Darcy wrote out one which
a clerk affixed to the front door for him.

"Well, that's all I can do now," Dr. Warren said, after his very
perfunctory examination. "The rest will have to be at the morgue. Got
a place where I can wash my hands?" he asked.

Darcy indicated a little closet near his work bench. Dr. Warren soon
resumed his coat, accepted a cigarette from Daley, slipped into his
still damp rain-garment and was soon throbbing down the street in his
automobile, having announced that he was going to breakfast and would
perform the autopsy immediately afterward.


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