you to solve it--if it can be solved. The newspapers had big
headlines this morning, and the public will be watching us on
account of the peculiar nature of the crime."

"I saw something about it in my paper this morning," said Morgan.
"There were no details, however. The notice probably caught the last
edition with little more than the fact that a murder had been
committed."

"Well," exclaimed the Chief, "it's one of the biggest mysteries
we've ever had handed to us. The shot was heard by both the man on
the beat and a tenant in the building, but outside of the stories of
these two men, and the discovery of a blood stain on a rug in a
supposedly empty flat, not another thing has been found. The body is
missing, and there is no trace of how it got out of the flat or
where it is now. Here is a report of all that we know so far. By the
way, your partner Tierney made this report. He happened to be on the
job last night, so I told him to stick to it."

The Chief handed the typewritten sheets to Morgan.

"You will note," he went on, "that the man on beat heard a shot at
about 2 A.M.; that he met a tenant from the house who said that he
had heard sounds of a struggle, a shot, and something like the
falling of a body. The police found the flat locked, and after they
broke in could find no one on the premises. Nothing was upset, and
there were no signs of the struggle, said to have taken place.
Another peculiar thing is that the police even overlooked the
bloodstain until the tenant who had heard the shot called their
attention to it. Tierney tried to get some more details this