“Would you know it again?” asked Blick. Waters pointed to some figures and letters in the entry. “That’s the number,” he said. Blick produced the weapon he had picked up from beneath the Airedale terrier’s busy feet. “That it?” he enquired. Waters turned the automatic pistol over in his hand, and looked carefully at the figures and letters stamped into the mount. “That’s it!” he answered. “Oh, yes—but I should have known it again without that.” “There’s no doubt about it?” said Blick. “No possibility of any mistake? You’re sure that is the pistol you sold, on that date, to Mr. Harry Markenmore?” “There’s not the slightest doubt,” replied Waters confidently. “Take my oath of it!” Blick put the automatic pistol back in his pocket and turned away. “I hope that won’t be necessary, Mr. Waters,” he said. “However——” here he looked at the gunsmith, who, with the Chief Constable, had stood by, watching and listening—“in the meantime keep all this to yourself—don’t mention it to anybody. I may as well tell you, in confidence, that I found this thing—and it may have been lost by its owner—dropped, quite innocently. So—for the present—silence!” The gunsmith and his manager nodded comprehendingly, and Blick and the Chief Constable went out into the street and walked some little distance in silence. “Another complication!” muttered Blick at last. “And I suppose it’s within bounds of possibility that Harry Markenmore shot his brother and threw this thing away in Deep Lane! Possible! but, I think, not at all probable. However, I’ll soon make sure about that.” “How?” asked the Chief Constable. “According to the medical evidence,” answered Blick, “Guy Markenmore was shot dead at Markenmore Hollow about four o’clock in the morning. Now it was just about that hour that Sir Anthony Markenmore died at Markenmore Court, and I imagine that his younger son would be at his bedside. Harry Markenmore couldn’t be in two places at once. Still, how came this automatic pistol in that badger-hole? That’s got to be answered—somehow! For without a doubt, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to get rid of it.” The Chief Constable suddenly laid one hand on the detective’s arm, and with the other pointed across the street. “There’s the very man who will know what Harry Markenmore was doing, and exactly where he was on the night of his father’s death!” he exclaimed. “Come across!” Blick looked in the direction indicated, and saw Braxfield. The old butler, very solemn and precise in his mourning raiment, was just emerging from a chemist’s shop, sundry small parcels in his hands. He lifted startled eyes as the Chief Constable accosted him. “Good evening, Braxfield,” said the Constable, affably. “How are you in these trying times?” Braxfield shook his head. “Trying indeed they are, sir!” he replied. “I have felt this week, sir, as if the world was being turned upside down—my world at any rate! I never knew such times, sir, nor expected to know such!”