"What for?" he asked huskily. "You haven't got nothin' on me. It was suicide--cor'ner's jury says so. Lord! It has to be, him layin' there, all hunched up on the floor, his gun so tight in his mitt that they had to pry the fingers off it!" "So you found the body?" He nodded and gulped. "I told all I knowed at the inquest," he said doggedly. "Tell it again," I commanded. Standing there, working his hands together as though he held some small, accustomed tool that he was turning, shifting from foot to foot, with long breaks in his speech, the chauffeur finally put me into possession of what he knew--or what he wished me to know. He had been out all night. That was usual with him Saturdays. Where? Over around the canneries. Had friends that lived there. He got into this place about dawn, and went straight to bed. "Hold on, Hughes," I stopped him there. "You never went to bed--that night, or any other night--until you'd had a jolt from the bottle inside." He gave me a surly, half frightened glance, then said quickly, "Not a chance. Bolts on the doors, locks everywhere; all tight as a jail. Take it from me, he wasn't the kind you want to have a run-in with--any time. Always just as cool as ice himself; try to make you believe he could tell what you were up to, clear across town. Hold it over you as if he was God almighty that stuck folks together and set 'em walkin' around and thinkin' things." He broke off and looked over his shoulder in the direction of the study. The walls were thick--concrete; the door heavy. No sound of Worth's moving in there could be heard in this room. Apparently it was the old terror of his employer, or the new terror of the employer's death, that spoke when he said, "I got up this morning late with a throat like the back of a chimney. Lord! I never wanted a drink so bad in my life--had to have one. The chink leaves my breakfast for me Sundays; but I knew I couldn't eat till I'd had one. So I--so I--" It was as though some recollection fairly choked off his voice. I finished for him. "So you went in there--" I pointed at the study door, "and found the body." "Naw! How the hell could I? I told you--locked. I crawled up on the roof, though; huntin' a way in, and I looked through the skylight. There he was. On the floor. His eyes weren't open much, but they was watchin' me--sort of sneerin'. I come down off that roof like a bat outa hell, and scuttled over to Vandeman's where his chink was on the porch, I bellerin' at him. I telephoned from there. For the bulls; and the cor'ner; and everybody. Gawd! I was all in." I caught one point in the tale. "So the way into the study is through the skylight, Hughes?" and he shook his head vaguely, fumbling his lips with a trembling hand as he replied, "Honest to God, Cap'n, I don't know. I never tried. I gave just one look through it, and--" He broke off with a shudder. "Get a ladder," I commanded. "I want to see that skylight."