“The first one, Mr. Carter,” said the policeman. “Detective Phelan is in there. Wait in the vestibule, Mr. Hawley, if you like,” he added to the reporter. “Mr. Carter will not forget you.” Nick heard these added remarks, including the reporter’s name, while he entered the house with Chick. He noticed that there were several drops of dry blood on the polished, uncarpeted floor near the door of the first flat. A polished stairway led up to the second floor. There were three women in mourning gowns seated on the upper stairs; with pale and awed gaze they turned upon the two detectives. Nick found the door of the first flat ajar, and he entered without knocking. A large dark man about fifty years old was seated in one of the armchairs in the handsomely furnished front parlor, but he at once arose when the two detectives entered. “I have been waiting for you, Nick,” said he, after a word in hearty greeting. “Gordon telephoned to me after his arrest, stating that you were coming here at his request, and asking me not to disturb things before you arrived. I have done very little in that line, so I decided to wait for you. That’s equivalent to admitting, you see, that I realize your head to be longer than mine.” “Thanks, Phelan,” said Nick, smiling faintly. “I’m thinking, however, that this job won’t require a very long head,” Phelan quickly added. “The truth sticks out all over it.” “Involving Arthur Gordon?” “I feel so sure of it that I sent a policeman, Jim Kennedy, to arrest him.” “As convincing as that, is it?” “That’s what, Nick, and there’s no telling what a man might do who has done a job of this kind. I thought I’d better get him without delay.” Nick glanced around the room, noting a few drops of blood on the thick Wilton carpet, a scattered trail leading through a broad, curtained doorway into an adjoining room. One curtain of the portière was partly torn from its pins and was hanging awry from its walnut rod. “Step in there and have a look,” said Phelan. “Nothing can be done for the woman, so I’ve not called a physician. She was dead and gone long ago.” Nick drew aside the portière and entered the adjoining room. It evidently had been used for a living room, or a library. In the middle of it stood a table covered with newspapers, books, and magazines. A desk between two windows overlooking the side street, the roller shades of which still were drawn down, had been broken open and some of its contents were scattered over the floor. Against the wall of an adjoining bedroom, accessible from a passageway leading to a dining room and kitchen, stood a sofa, on which were several handsome silk pillows. Two of them were bespattered with blood.