"Certainly not. The precinct runs like a watch. I'll match their morale against any outfit east of the Mississippi. Why are you taking this so heavy?" "Because you're the third. The other two--your cousin Thomas McGurn and your uncle Robert Orsino--didn't have guards to get in the way. One other question." "Yes, uncle." "My boy, _why_ didn't you tell me about this when you first came in?" IV A family council was called the next day. Orsino, very much a junior, had never been admitted to one before. He knew why the exception was being made, and didn't like the reason. Edward Falcaro wagged his formidable white beard at the thirty-odd Syndic chiefs around the table and growled: "I think we'll dispense with reviewing production and so on. I want to talk about this damn gunplay. Dick, bring us up to date." He lit a vile cigar and leaned back. Richard W. Reiner rose. "Thomas McGurn," he said, "killed April 15th by a burst of eight machine gun bullets in his private dining room at the Astor. Elsie Warshofsky, his waitress, must be considered the principal suspect, but--" Edward Falcaro snapped: "Suspect, hell! She killed him, didn't she?" "_I was about to say_, but the evidence so far is merely cumulative. Mrs. Warshofsky jumped--fell--or was pushed--from the dining room window. The machine gun was found beside the window. "There are no known witnesses. Mrs. Warshofsky's history presents no unusual features. An acquaintance submitted a statement--based, she frankly admitted, on nothing definite--that Mrs. Warshofsky sometimes talked in a way that led her to wonder if she might not be a member of the secret terrorist organization known as the D.A.R. In this connection, it should be noted that Mrs. Warshofsky's maiden name was Adams. "Robert Orsino, killed April 21st by a thermite bomb concealed in his pillow and fuzed with a pressure-sensitive switch. His valet, Edward Blythe, disappeared from view. He was picked up April 23rd by a posse on the beach of Montauk Point, but died before he could be questioned. Examination of his stomach contents showed a lethal quantity of sodium fluoride. It is presumed that the poison was self-administered." "Presumed!" the old man snorted, and puffed out a lethal quantity of cigar smoke. "Blythe's history," Reiner went on blandly, "presents no unusual features. It should be noted that a commerce-raider of the so-called United States Government Navy was reported off Montauk Point during the night of April 23rd-24th by local residents.