"But I tell you, Officer, you can't want Mr. Malone. He's a fine boy and I will vouch for him personally. I'm sure he hasn't done anything wrong." "I'm not saying he's done anything wrong, madam," a bass rumble answered. "But the officer on the beat said he lived here." A rap sounded on the door. Rocks took his feet out of the window and said, "Come in." A blue-coated figure thrust his head in. "You Malone?" he inquired. "Yes. What's wrong?" "We want you over at the Museum." Rocks was already grabbing for his clothes, jerking them on over his pajamas. "What's wrong? What's happened?" The cop shook his head. He was still a little white around the gills. "We don't know what's happened. The sawbones wasn't there when I left. But we want you to identify a man." "Why can't he identify himself?" The officer wiped perspiration from his face. "Because he's dead." "Dead!" The word leaped from Rocks' lips. The first shiver of fear knifed through him. He was not yet wide awake and he hadn't fully comprehended what the officer wanted. But that single word shocked him to instant wakefulness. In the basement of the museum they found three men talking earnestly in a corner. They weren't in uniform but their bearing fairly shouted "Detective!" They looked scared. Rocks didn't know it then, but these three men belonged to the homicide squad. They were accustomed to looking at violent death in all its forms. Stiffs didn't scare them. But they _were_ scared. They had the uneasy alertness of the man-hunter who senses danger. His escort turned Rocks over to them. "I'm Kennedy; homicide bureau," said one of them. He had a heavy, impassive face and eyes that were drills of jet. "Sorry to bother you, Malone. You work here?" "I'm on the staff." "Good. The doc is already here. We want you to identify a body, if you can. Come this way." Kennedy led Rocks to the large basement room, the other two plain-clothesmen following behind. This was the room where the specimens brought back from the four corners of Asia were uncrated and cleaned and prepared for display on the floors above. Loot from the tomb of forgotten kings, bits of pottery from Ephesus, a winged bull carved out of the stone of Nineveh, mummy cases from Egypt--for Egypt was included by the museum--beads from the valley of the Tigris-Euphrates, big and little, the relics of lost and dead centuries were piled here. Even in the daylight the place was ghostly. Photographers were popping flashlight bulbs and taking pictures of the exact position of the body. As Rocks entered they took their last picture and stood aside and the doctor from the coroner's office bent over the body and began his examination. Then Rocks saw the body on the floor. He recoiled. "My God! That's Samuel Morton."