Three or four minutes later the physician's machine, Bushnell at the wheel and Bates in the rear seat with the insensible Griggs, rolled down the white-graveled driveway, and Wiggly returned to the house, wondering a little what had happened to Tip Gregory, reporter for the rival paper, _The Transcript_. Probably Tip, rebuffed at Greenacres, had gone to the village in search of information. Sergeant Tish had come down from the second floor and had established himself in one of the library's roomy chairs, making himself as comfortable as his twinging shoulder would permit. His roundish face was still gray with the throbbing pain, but he endured it with fortitude. "Well, young man," he grunted, "you've got a darn good story, and you ought to be satisfied. Seems to me that it's good enough to suit your paper without your trying to add anything imaginative." "Meaning," replied Wiggly, "that you'd have me quit thinking. Nope, I stick to my hunch that Haskins' story was what he said it was--strictly on the level." "Bunk!" snorted Tish. "Let's talk it over, sergeant," Wiggly urged earnestly as, hands rammed deep into his pockets, he strode up and down the room, his ears twitching slightly. "Does it seem reasonable to you that Haskins would have left the automatic behind him after the shooting?" "Humph!" the New York detective grunted non-committally. "That gun," went on the newspaper man, "was his one friend, the only hope that he had if he were cornered. Besides, leaving the gun behind served no purpose--no purpose whatever. In fact, if he had the brains to reason it out, he would have known that there was a chance--a serious chance--of the automatic being identified as your gun. It's the common thing to trace a gun by its serial number." "He might have dropped the gun accidentally and didn't have a chance to get his hands on it again." "Oh, I say, sergeant, that's too thin!" exclaimed Wiggly. "It's taking too much for granted to presume that the gun accidentally fell in a position directly beneath the murdered woman's hand. No, that was done with the deliberate intention of having her death appear suicide." "It's a good point, and it's reasonable," admitted Tish, "but it doesn't prove anything. I got to admit it does seem a little queer that Haskins would have left the gun behind." "And it hooks up with Haskins' story about missing the gun, realizing that the Gilmore woman had lifted it out of his pocket, and his determination to risk a trip downstairs again in an effort to get it back." "Humph!" Tish said again. "When you identified the gun as yours--the one that Haskins took away from you when he knocked you out at Eighth Avenue Annie's yesterday--it did seem impossible that Sarbella, or any one else, could have done the shooting. But let us suppose that Haskins' dying statement was true. The Gilmore woman had the gun; maybe she took it because she was afraid of her legal husband."