"How long had you been in bed when it happened?" "It was some time, sir; at least two hours, I am sure." "What I'm hittin' at is this," explained Griggs; "we've got some new dope that may mean something, and then again it may not. Did you let a strange man into the house last night, or did you see any strange man prowlin' about the place?" "I--I don't believe I understand," murmured Bates. "A strange man, sir--prowling about the house?" "That's what I said," grunted the constable, "and it's evident that you didn't. Was the doors locked?" "Absolutely," Bates answered firmly. "I always lock up before turning in for the night. I have been very careful about that, especially since the burglar scare that we had last year." "Then the man couldn't have got into the house unless you had let him in?" pressed Griggs. "The woman herself might have let him in, constable," interposed Sergeant Tish. "If the butler had gone to bed she might have done it without any one hearing her." "Huh!" retorted Ham Griggs, with a quicker flash of reasoning than might have been expected. "How would she have known Haskins was about, unless he rung the doorbell, or called her on the phone, or something like that? Until you, Sergeant Tish, trapped 'im in that place in New York, he didn't know his own self that he was comin' to Greenacres." "I am positive that there was no ring of any sort, either doorbell or telephone, until Mr. Gilmore got me up to let him in--just before the shot," offered Bates. "Any sort of ringing would have awakened me. But this strange man--I do not understand. Who----" "Might as well tell you, I suppose," grunted the constable. "We've found out that the murder gun most likely belongs to this man"--he jerked his head toward Tish--"who is a detective from New York. The gun was taken away from him by a feller named Haskins, who swiped a taxi in New York to make his get-away, and that same taxi was found by myself out on the road, 'bout one and a half or two miles from here. So----" "Then it isn't Mr. Sarbella's gun?" broke in Bates with a gasp of surprise. "That don't mean I've turned Sarbella out of jail, not by a whole lot, it don't," growled Ham Griggs. "He might have got hold of the gun somehow; he might----" But, being unable to supply any further theory of Sarbella's guilt, his voice stopped abruptly. There was a moment of silence, broken by Bates. "Did I tell you about the letter?" he asked in his thin voice. "No, I think not. It was Doctor Bushnell that I told about the letter." "What letter?" demanded Griggs. "The letter that came for Mrs. Gilmore on Monday," supplied the butler. "I considered it most peculiar at the time, a very dirty envelope, addressed with a lead pencil. She seemed much upset over it, although she tried to pass it off."