Loris Stockbridge, gowned in lace chiffon and cloaked with ermine and sable, glided across the rugs and stood framed beneath the soft, rose-light of the central dome. Her dusk-black eyes burned and blazed like flame through tinder smoke as she confronted the detective. Clasped in the fingers of her jewelless right hand was a tiny, ivory-handled revolver. "What are all these people doing here?" she asked hysterically. CHAPTER SIX "HARRY NICHOLS" Detective Triggy Drew flushed slightly beneath his olive skin. He bowed, with his keen eyes fixed upon the little, ivory-handled revolver clutched so tightly in Loris Stockbridge's right hand. He bowed for a second time. His eyes lifted and his brows arched as he said distinctly: "Miss Stockbridge, something very serious has happened to your father. It happened in this library. It happened this morning. Won't you please go back upstairs to your rooms until I call for you. At present I am in charge of matters." "Matters? What do you mean?" The girl swayed slightly. She glanced down at the revolver as if she were unaware that it was in her hand. Drew advanced a step in her direction. He feared a woman and a gun more than anything else in the world. Both were liable to form a dangerous combination. "Something happened," he repeated. "I'm very sorry for you, Miss Stockbridge." "Happened!" she exclaimed. "Happened to him? You don't mean that letter--that telephone call--do you?" Loris' splendid, dusky eyes, within the depths of which high lights shone, wandered over the polished table. They fastened upon the envelope from the cemetery company. They fixed where the letter lay with one corner beneath the center piece. They lifted in thought. They swung toward the waiting detective who had placed himself between her and the body of her father. She divined this movement with quick intuition. She stepped to one side and bent downward with a graceful movement of her hips. She gasped and pointed a left hand finger, which wavered and went up to her hair as her palm pressed against the side of her head. She started sobbing--short, throaty sobs of poignant distress. "Please don't," whispered Drew holding out a guarding arm. "Please don't, Miss Stockbridge. Your father is beyond this earth. You should not have come down here." "Dead?" The word came from the depths of a soul. "Dead?" she repeated with her taper fingers spreading across her face. "Yes, Miss," said Drew with a catch in his voice. "Yes, he is quite dead. He was slain in this room by a revolver shot which struck behind and under his left ear. No one was in the library when he locked himself in, save himself. No one was here when we broke the door down. And, save his servants and you, no one was in this house. He was----"