"I've always heard that you newspaper fellers was a pesky nuisance," he muttered. If Wiggly was tempted to a retort, he gave no signs of it, merely murmured an apology. There was a moment of silence, the constable frowning deeply. "We do know why Sarbella would have killed her," he argued; "because she vamped his brother and drove him to suicide, but why would this Haskins feller have done it? Answer me that!" "Haskins is a hard guy," growled Sergeant Tish. "He wouldn't have needed much motive, that bird. Look at the way he clouted me over the head with his handcuffs. Like as not he had some sort of hold on her. The murdered woman must of been the swell dame that Haskins told Eighth Avenue Annie was his sister. See?" "That ain't nothin' but guessin'," said Constable Griggs. "How are you goin' to know if she was?" "It may be guessing, but it's a darn' good guess," replied Tish. "And, far as that's concerned, we can have Annie down to look at the body and tell us whether or not it was the skirt who come to her place and handed Haskins some dough." "But _why_ would Haskins have killed her?" persisted Ham Griggs. "Well, I can't say positive as to that," answered Tish, "but it would be a pretty safe bet to figure it out. When I dropped in on him at old Annie's yesterday afternoon, he had to beat it in such a hurry that he left his money under the mattress; perhaps he made tracks for this Greenacres place to get money. Y'see, constable, she was going to bring him some more jack Wednesday--which is to-day--but I spoiled that. Since she couldn't come to him with the dough, he come to her. Like as not she was a little slow in coming across with the money, and he croaked her." "Robbery, huh?" demanded Ham Griggs. "Ain't that what you're drivin' at?" Sergeant Tish admitted that this was his tentative theory regarding the murder at Greenacres. The constable's grim face broke into a triumphant smile, for he had led the New York detective into a deliberate trap. "That ain't no good," he said with a grunt of satisfaction. "There wasn't no robbery, Mr. Tish, for the Gilmore woman was still wearin' her jewelry when we found her dead. There must have been diamonds and the like worth a good many hundred dollars. Wouldn't he have taken the jewelry? I ask you, wouldn't he?" "Well, I didn't know about that," answered Sergeant Tish, looking not so crestfallen as Griggs would have liked. "That seemed the most plausible, and it's still not impossible, for Haskins may have taken money and have been too pressed for time--you haven't told me anything about the facts, you know--to strip off the jewelry. "Anyhow what we _do_ know is that Haskins did go to Greenacres, and that murder was done with the gun which was in his possession. If Haskins didn't kill her, then--how did the murderer get this automatic pistol?"