"Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on the street." "You are right about the automobile," Hunter said dryly. "The mayor sent his car away as I left to follow Mr. Wardrop. The sounds you heard were not shots." "It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that a revolver could be fired in the upper room of an ordinary dwelling house, while that house was filled with people--and nobody hear it. Were there any powder marks on the body?" "None," Hunter said. The chief got up stiffly. "Thank you very much, gentlemen," he spoke quietly. "I think that is all. Hunter, I would like to see you for a few minutes." I think Wardrop was dazed at finding himself free; he had expected nothing less than an immediate charge of murder. As we walked to the corner for a car or cab, whichever materialized first, he looked back. "I thought so," he said bitterly. A man was loitering after us along the street. The police were not asleep, they had only closed one eye. The last train had gone. We took a night electric car to Wynton, and walked the three miles to Bellwood. Neither of us was talkative, and I imagine we were both thinking of Margery, and the news she would have to hear. It had been raining, and the roads were vile. Once Wardrop turned around to where we could hear the detective splashing along, well behind. "I hope he's enjoying it," he said. "I brought you by this road, so he'd have to wade in mud up to his neck." "The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I'll have to be scraped with a knife before I can get my clothes off." We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction. The detective was well behind, but after a while Wardrop stood still, while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of us trudged on, talking of immaterial things. At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It's raining again," he said, "you'd better come in. You needn't worry about me; I'm not going to run away, and there's a couch in the library." The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized the man I had followed to the police station two nights before. "I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes. "This thing is only a matter of form, anyhow." But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall near the foot of the stairs, and we left him there, with the evening paper and a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least. CHAPTER X BREAKING THE NEWS Wardrop looked so wretched that I asked him into my room, and mixed him some whisky and water. When I had given him a cigar he began to look a little less hopeless. "You've been a darned sight better to me than I would have been to you, under the circumstances," he said gratefully.