But before he left the room he leaned far out of the window looking downward. Vail had no need to follow the chief’s example. He knew the veranda roof was directly outside and that any active man could climb up or down the vine trellis which screened that end of the porch. He also knew no man could have done so without making enough noise to have attracted Thaxton’s notice in the night’s stillness before the crime. Nor could any man have walked on the tin veranda roof, even barefoot, without the crackle and bulge of the tin giving loud notice of his presence. A tin roof cannot be traversed noiselessly, even by a cat, to say nothing of a grown man. As the three trooped downstairs they found the others assembled in the hall nervously awaiting them. “Well?” asked Miss Gregg. “He was murdered!” pronounced the chief, portentously. “You amaze me,” said the old lady. “But then, of course, you have the trained police mentality. By whom?” “That is what we intend to find out,” answered the chief, tartly. “Where’s the phone? I want to send for a couple of my men. When I’ve done that I want to ask a few questions.” “We may as well go back into the living room and sit down,” suggested Doris. “It’s chilly out here.” But as the rest were following her suggestion she took occasion to slip back into the hall whither Vail was returning after showing Quimby where to find the telephone. “Thax!” she whispered hurriedly. “I’m so sorry I was cross! I spoke abominably to you. Won’t you _please_ forgive me? You know perfectly well I didn’t mean a word of the nasty things I said.” “I know,” he said soothingly. “I know. Don’t think any more about it. It’s all right. I--” “And, Thax,” she went on, thrilling oddly as his hand clasped hers, “I did what you asked me to, after all. I took the pistol upstairs with me. I hid it under the scarf I was carrying, and I smuggled it up there. I wanted you to know--” “They’ll be here in ten minutes now,” interrupted the chief, returning from the telephone. He preceded them into the living room. Briefly, at his request, Vail told of the collie’s amazing behavior and of the finding of Chase. “You say you hadn’t gone to bed?” asked Quimby, when the short recital was ended. “Why not?” “It is my own house. It had been robbed. I felt responsible. It seemed safer for some one to stay on guard.” “In case the thief or thieves should return?” inquired the chief. “If you had any practical experience in such matters, you would know a house which has just been robbed is safer than any other. Thieves don’t rob the same house a second time the same night. Police annals show that a house in which a crime has just been committed is immune from an immediate second crime.” “If robbery and murder may both be classified as crimes and not as mere outbursts of playfulness,” said Miss Gregg, “that theory has been proven with beautiful definiteness here to-night. So the second crime was probably imaginary or only--”