"Probably it can be arranged," Doctor Bushnell said after a moment of hesitation. "Of course it will be rather difficult to admit one reporter and bar the others, and there will be a regiment of them swooping down on us; but you have rendered valuable assistance that makes it very hard for me to refuse you. You will let me know, just as soon as you have clinched the matter, whether the cigarette butt was dropped by Sarbella." He was taking the door key from his pocket and was starting to leave the room. "Certainly," answered Wiggly, moving to follow. "I came out from the office in a taxi, and it's waiting downstairs. I shall come back immediately after I have----" His voice trailed off, as he squinted at the floor, where the chaise longue with its tragic burden cast a shadow over the rug. Swiftly he bent forward and picked up something. Doctor Bushnell stared; it was nothing more startling than a hairpin, and he was rather impatient that the newspaper man should subject it to such an apparently interesting scrutiny. "As I said," murmured Wiggly, "artificial light is tricky. Either one of us should have noticed this before." "It's nothing but a common, ordinary hairpin," grunted the physician; "there's nothing in that--probably fell out of her hair." Price's forehead was wrinkled into a frown, and his ears were wiggling again. "It dropped from some one's hair," he muttered. "Her hair? I wonder if it did?" "Don't be ridiculous," snapped Doctor Bushnell. "Look at it!" the other commanded tersely. "What color is that hairpin?" "Black, of course," the doctor said impatiently. "Exactly--black! The dead woman's hair is blond. Step over to her dressing table, and perhaps you'll be puzzled, too. See, she uses bronze hairpins, doctor. Any woman with hair the color of hers, would. A black hairpin! I wonder if this is a clew, a real clew?" "Rot!" retorted the physician. "Any one might have dropped it; the maid----" "Where is the maid?" "Bates said that she went to Yonkers." "And has the maid black hair?" Doctor Bushnell considered for a moment, trying to remember. "Dark hair," he nodded; "perhaps not black. I couldn't say as to the identical shade." "The other Mrs. Gilmore?" "Quite gray." "And the other--what is her name?" The doctor frowned indignantly. "Such a suspicion is too ridiculous, too absurd!" he protested. Yet with a vaguely uneasy feeling he remembered Joan Sheridan's strange behavior, her anguished protest of Victor Sarbella's innocence--and Joan's hair was black, jet black! CHAPTER XVII KIRKLAN PROTESTS Hint of the physician's disturbed thoughts must have shown in his face, for Wiggly Price gave him a keen, curious look, which seemed to increase the former's discomfiture; he dallied nervously with the fraternal charm attached to his watch chain. "What color did you say, doctor?" pressed the newspaper man.