"What's that?" asked the operative.

"Out through the hole in the diaphragm," continued Drew, "and right into your ear or my ear, Delaney!"

"Not into mine!" exclaimed the operative. "I'll never telephone as long as I live, Chief!"

"We'll all be careful," said Nichols, turning toward Loris.

Drew gathered together the different parts of the telephone receiver.

"Evidence against Morphy," he said dryly, as he dropped them into the side pocket of his coat. "They are our Exhibit A if he ever finishes that twenty years in the cooler."

Loris reached out her hand. "You saved my life," she said. "You saved it, Mr. Drew."

"I blundered and blundered and blundered on this case," admitted the detective frankly. "Now I'm going to request you to wait a few minutes before I call the coroner. Delaney has some questions. I feel sure he wants to ask me one or two."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"THE END"

Triggy Drew's eyes shone with triumphant fire as he turned and faced the group gathered in the sitting room.

He adjusted his coat lapels, clicked his heels and smiled politely. His hand strayed up to his short-cropped mustache which was still neat and well-trimmed despite the labors of the day.

"Although the case is practically closed," he said with concern, "there are features which are not entirely cleared up--even in my mind.

Perhaps we have a little time," he added, glancing at his watch. "Let's go into the other room--away from these memories--and have a cup of tea, if Miss Stockbridge will be so kind as to order some."

Loris glanced at Nichols. She nodded as she turned toward Drew. He moved over to the rug which covered Cuthbert Morphy's body. He stooped and adjusted this. He rose and dimmed the lights by snapping off two of the switches and turning a bulb in its socket. He hesitated as he glanced at the telephone wires which Delaney had cut.

"Central will wonder what has happened," he said half aloud. "The connections leading to this house have given them a lot of trouble in the last few hours. I suppose they haven't another trouble-man like this one, though?" Drew pointed toward the shadowed rug which gleamed with silk and rare woven designs.

Loris raised her hand and grasped the portieres. She shuddered slightly. She allowed her eyes to wander over the room as if for a last fleeting glance. They locked with the detective's own. She smiled with a plaintive droop to her mouth.

"I'll order the tea," she said invitingly. "Will you come in?"

Drew bowed and followed her through the portieres. Delaney already stood by the door which led to the maid's room. Harry Nichols had picked up a small book and was impatiently examining its pages. The soldier turned and eyed the detective.

"We'll sit down?" he asked, laying the book on a cushion. "I'm a bit curious to know how you worked out a number of things. I think that Miss Stockbridge is, too."

"I'd like to be a detective!" exclaimed Loris, gliding across the room and tapping with her knuckles on the door. "Wouldn't you, Mr. Delaney?"

she added navely.

Delaney chuckled. "I would, Miss," he said with candor. "I'm not a regular. I'm only a volunteer. Mr. Drew has me along to do the heavy work. He says what I can't lift I can drag."

Loris smiled as the maid answered by opening the door to a crack. "Tea for four," she said. "Pekoe and tea biscuits--unless----"

She turned and widened her eyes prettily. "Would you have anything else?" she asked Drew.

"Strong tea!" exclaimed the detective. "I'll take 'hops,' as we call it. Make it very strong and then we'll settle some of these questions.

My head is none too clear. I've been under a strain. I'm frank to admit that!"

The tea arrived within ten minutes. Drew had prevented Delaney from 'phoning for the coroner or to Fosd.i.c.k. "Some matters to clear up," he whispered suggestively. "We'll leave this place with the case entirely completed."

Nichols arranged two chairs about a tiny teak-wood table. He had set this table within the bay of an alcove. The s.p.a.ce was small, with Delaney's big feet very much in the way.

Drew poised his cup and glanced from Loris to Nichols. Their heads were very close together. The blue-black l.u.s.ter of the girl's hair was a perfect contrast to the officer's blond pompadour which was slightly disarranged. The light from above haloed with the soft fire of frosted gla.s.s and cut prisms.

The detective upended the cup, drank deeply, then pa.s.sed it over to Delaney. "Another, please," he said, watching the operative struggling with a saucer which was far too fragile for his thick fingers. "One more cup," he added. "No sugar."

Loris leaned from the cushion at the small of her back and glanced toward the portieres with thought-laden eyes. "Poor misguided fellow,"

she said softly. "I feel uneasy, Mr. Drew. Somehow or other I feel that we were partly responsible for his death. I wish it hadn't happened."

"I'll agree with you. We must forget more than we remember in this world. Our time is short. The coroner and the Central Office squad will have to be notified. I don't doubt that Fosd.i.c.k will be surprised at the turn in the case. He has some of your servants locked up, you know!"

Loris pressed closer to Nichols. "I wish that body wasn't in there,"

she whispered. "Suppose he had other confederates who would break in?"

"He worked alone," a.s.sured Drew, finishing the second cup and setting it down. "I found no evidence of another crook. He worked single-handed and single-minded. He made one mistake. Morphy was a bungler. A bungler is a man who lets his artistic temperament get the better of him. Had he allowed Cuthbert to slay both the--Mr. Stockbridge and yourself over the 'phone, he would never have solved the case. It was the telephoning from Sing Sing that opened up the entire matter."

"The inevitable slip!" exclaimed Nichols.

"Yes," said Drew. "They all make it. I could tell you of a thousand instances. But back of the inevitable slip, as you call it, is something deeper. It has not often been mentioned in dealing with criminals."

"What is it?" asked Loris.

"Ego! Criminal ego! Most transgressors would go to the electric chair if the newspapers would write enough about them."

Loris raised her brows. "Is that the reason," she asked, "why Morphy telephoned before he killed poor father?"

"Exactly!" declared the detective. "Ego explains much that we call revenge. Now," he added, glancing about and at a tiny clock on a cabinet. "Now the questions from everybody! Make them short. Mr.

Delaney and I will leave in ten minutes."

Nichols glanced at Loris. "You first," he said.

"I've just one or two, Mr. Drew," she said.

"What are they?"

"Why did that poor dead man spare my life when he called me up the first time? He could have killed me then."

"I explained that. It wasn't _his_ vendetta."

"Vendetta?"

"That is what this case is. An almost successful attempt to wipe out, or I should say obliterate, the Stockbridge Family--root and branch.

Morphy had nursed the thing for over a year. He had soured up there in prison. His mind became abnormal. He conceived an abnormal revenge.