Drew leaned with one hand on the corner of the table and peered downward. He called the magnate's name. He repeated it. He turned toward the doorway. His hand raised. His finger pressed against his lips. "Stockbridge is dead," he told Delaney, who glided to his side. "He is dead. He was shot to death in this sealed room. I wonder who did it?" "Ah, Sing!" shrieked the magpie. "Ah, Sing! Ah, Sing!" CHAPTER FIVE "THE FIRST CLEWS" The magpie's words, repeated over and over as Drew and Delaney stood in the room of death, struck both men as a possible clew. It was more than likely that the murderer or the murdered man had shouted something, the moment the shot was fired. This exclamation might have been, "Ah, Sing!" The bird had repeated something it had memorized, or retained in its shallow brain. "Ah, Sing!" suggested Drew, keenly on the alert. "Ah, Sing, eh? Never forget that! We may need it--later." "Sounds like a Chinaman," said the operative. "Stockbridge was shot by a Chink!" "Get busy! Go over the room and look for a possible hiding place. You, butler, stand across that doorway! Don't move from there!" Drew wheeled and stared at the white faces of the servants which were framed in the somber curtains of the opening to the hall. The detective swung back. He rounded the large table with slow steps. He bent down. One knee touched the rug. He reached and grasped the magnate's stiff arm. He worked it like a hinge. He felt of the muscles. They were rigid. Rising, Drew again tested the air of the library. He glanced at Delaney, who was opening the book-case doors. "What do you smell?" he asked sharply. The operative turned and sniffed with widening nostrils. "It's powder!" he said. "Gunpowder, Chief." "Sure?" "It's kind-a peculiar--at that." "Explain yourself--be clear!" Delaney scratched his head. "I'd say, Chief, it was smokeless powder. It don't smell like the ordinary kind." "I saw smoke when I came in!" "That smokeless stuff smokes. It ain't altogether what they call it. Remember the shootin'-gallery at Headquarters? There's smoke there when the police are practicing with them steel-jacketed bullets." "You're right," said Drew. "Keep on looking about. I'm getting on. Stockbridge was shot at very close range behind and under the left ear. The weapon used was a small-caliber revolver. The bullet is undoubtedly lodged in the lower brain. Powder stains are in his hair. The opening is clotted shut. He fell forward. In falling he knocked over the little table with its load of ash-trays, match-boxes, telephone, cigar butts and the whisky bottle and the glass. He's been dead some time." "I 'e'rd no shot!" cried the butler from the doorway. Drew wheeled. "You wouldn't," he said sharply. "Delaney," he added, "say, Delaney, get out your note book and pencil. I want to put down everything we can think of before I send for the coroner. We'll take a complete record. This thing is diabolical. You see nothing?"