"Miss Crown's dog?" cried Courtney, aghast, "Good God! Why,--why, it will break her heart! She LOVED that dog! Men! We've got to find the scoundrel. We've got to FIX him. He ought to be strung up. Has any one called Miss Crown up, Doctor? She is in the city. She--" "Mrs. Strong called her up. The automobile started for town fifteen or twenty minutes ago to bring her home." "Keep your shirt on, Court," warned Charlie Webster. "You'll bust a blood vessel. Cool off! There's no use talkin' about GETTING him. Whoever it was that planted these dog-buttons around town was slick enough to cover up his tracks. We'll never find out who did it. It's happened before, and the result is always the same. Dead dogs tell no tales." "But those two fellows I saw down at the corner last night--" "Would you be able to identify them?" "No,--hang it all! It was too dark. It was about half-past nine. Why, earlier in the evening I was at Miss Crown's. I saw the dog. He was on the terrace. He growled at me,--he always growled at me. He didn't like me. Mrs. Strong came to the door and called him into the house. I am sure he was all right then. When is he supposed to have got the poison, Doctor?" "This morning. She let him out of the house about seven o'clock. Paid no attention to him till he came crawling around to the kitchen door some time afterward. He just laid down and kicked a few times,--that's what makes me think it was prussic acid. It knocks 'em quick." "Come on, Charlie," cried Courtney, clutching the other's arm. "We must go up to the house. There may be some trace,--something that will give us a clue." He was at the house when the car returned without Alix. She had sent the chauffeur back with instructions to bury the dog. She could not bear looking at him. She wanted it to be all over with before she came home. "I don't blame her," said Charlie soberly. "Shows how much she thought of Sergeant when she's willing to pay five hundred dollars reward for the capture of the man or men who poisoned him." "Where did you hear that?" demanded Courtney, surprised. "Ed Stevens says she told him to authorize Bill Foss to have reward notices struck off over at the Sun office, offering five hundred cash. She always said that dog was the best friend she had on earth." "But five hundred dollars! Why, good Lord, you can buy a dozen police dogs for that amount of--" "You couldn't have bought Sergeant for ten times five hundred," interrupted Charlie. "You see, as a matter of fact, he didn't actually belong to Alix." "You must be crazy. She has had him since he was a puppy three months old." "Sure, But, all the same, he didn't belong to her. He belonged to David Strong. Davy got him in France in the spring of 1918 and sent him clear over here for his mother to take care of for him." Courtney was silent for a moment. "It's strange Miss Crown never told me this," he said, biting his lip.