"A bad skull fracture, sergeant, where Haskins struck him a terrific blow on the side of the head. I'm taking him to the hospital just as quickly as I've got you patched up a bit. You, too, if there is need." "Don't think it'll be necessary, doc. Lord, what a wild morning it's been!" He gritted his teeth, as the physician slipped down the coat sleeve and began ripping away the shirt. "What's happened to Gilmore? Strange that he didn't show up with all the racket." "Probably asleep under the influence of the opiate that I gave him to relax his strain," answered Doctor Bushnell. "He's one of those high-strung, emotional fellows, and I couldn't risk too much nervous tension with him. He was on the verge of a collapse. Poor devil! He's a good sort; doesn't deserve what that woman has done to him." Wiggly returned with the doctor's kit, and Bushnell began to work swiftly; the wound in the detective's shoulder had bled but little. The bullet, he found, had struck the collar bone at a deflecting angle, plowing for a brief distance along the top of the clavicle, where it was imbedded just beneath the skin. "You're a lucky man, Sergeant Tish," grunted the doctor. "If that had been a little lower there would have been the very devil to pay. The worst danger is that the bone has been cracked, and I do not think it has been. This treatment, of course, is only temporary; I'll look after you again later." It was the work of but a few minutes to make a shallow incision which removed the bullet, cauterize the wound, and apply dressings. "I shall take Griggs to the hospital in my car," said Bushnell, as he finished. "The butler can go along with me. We'll be back within an hour or so--just as soon as I can manage it. I suppose Sarbella will have to stay in jail until Griggs recovers consciousness and releases him." Wiggly broke a considerable silence. "It's my notion," he said, "that Sarbella had better stay right where he is until--well, until the case has been cleared up completely." The doctor stared in surprise. "What do you mean by that?" he exclaimed. "Not that there's any doubt but Haskins killed the woman?" "Not the slightest doubt that Haskins did it," Tish declared in a positive tone. "I don't take any stock in his story--that is, the part of it in which he denied doing the shooting. I suppose the rest of it is straight enough." Doctor Bushnell looked reprovingly at the newspaper man. "I must say," he said severely, "that you are a most perverse young man. When the weight of all the evidence was strictly against Sarbella, you were trying to prove his innocence. Yet now, when the discovery and capture of this desperate criminal--the legal husband of the dead woman--makes it practically certain that Haskins was the murderer, you suddenly change front and----"