central office already on the job, but they concealed their chagrin with what diplomacy they could muster.
"Nothing doing-up here, inspector," the senior of the twain announced. "We've looked in every hole and corner to the very roof and there isn't a soul about, living or dead. Nothin's been disturbed, either, and except for two or three of the servants' rooms it doesn't seem as if any of them had been occupied for some time, not even the master's own apartments."
"Mac, here, and I will just have a look around, anyway, and join you and Sam and Clancy below, Pete," Inspector Druet responded. "The commissioner has put me in charge, but I may need you both."
"Did you send the young crook off in the wagon, sir?" asked Clancy.
"Yes. He'll be taken care of, and I'll want your report on him later, but I understand you and McCarty are agreed that he had nothing to do with the main crime, the murder. Come, Mac."
As the rest descended to investigate the lower regions of the house, McCarty and the inspector crossed the wide corridor and entered the first room of a spacious suite on the left. It was evidently that of the mistress of the establishment, for the delicate lines of the furniture of the First Empire, the fragile ornaments and soft hues of the priceless rugs all betokened a feminine influence, although the toilet articles and similar objects of intimate daily use were missing and a slight smudge of dust lay here and there as if the effort to keep the rooms in order had of late been merely perfunctory.
CHAPTER III.
A VOICE OVER THE WIRE.
"LOOKS as if the missis had been away, all right," McCarty observed. "I don't read the society columns as regularly as I might, not having moved in such circles as this before, but I guess we'll know where she is when the boys of the press get hold of this for an 'extra'."
The rooms across the hall were no less richly appointed, but as unmistakably masculine in appearance as the first suite had been feminine. The furnishings were massive, the color scheme of walls and rugs and draperies dark, but boldly vivid, and despite its unstinted luxury the apartment bore an air of studied simplicity. Its rigid orderliness proclaimed that it, too, had not been occupied recently, but it was well aired and dusted as if in preparation for the immediate return of the owner.
In the lounging-room which opened off the bedchamber Inspector Druet approached an antique mahogany desk which stood in one corner and opened one drawer after another, while McCarty watched speculatively over his shoulders. They seemed to be filled with account books and miscellaneous correspondence mostly of a financial nature, and the latter was turning away when his superior paused with his hand upon the knob of the small drawer.
"Locked," he remarked succinctly. "And there isn't any keyhole."
"Then it works with a spring," McCarty suggested. "Million-a-month Creveling may not have dropped all his old philandering ways when he married, but he'd scarcely be likely to leave anything of a confidential nature in the place where his wife would first of all be looking for it, granted that she was of the looking kind."
"We have no time to bother with it now, at all events," the inspector remarked after several futile attempts to open the drawer. I'll have an expert up here the first thing in the morning, but we had better be getting on through the house now; it's almost four o'clock."
Together they continued their inspection of the upper floors, but found nothing even remotely bearing on the investigation until they came to the topmost one, where the servants' quarters were evidently located. Here two connecting bedchambers and a third across the hall bore mute testimony, not only of occupation, but of hurried departure.
In the first room dresses and aprons of a plain, serviceable quality were scattered about, and in the adjoining one the half-opened closet door and drawers of the bureau revealed the habiliments of a butler dragged forth in obvious confusion.
