seen, as on the screen, a man shot, perhaps killed, and now all the actors had vanished as completely as they do when the movie is over.

Then, for I am not entirely devoid of conscience, it occurred to me that I had a duty,—that it was incumbent upon me to report to somebody. I thought of the police, but was it right to call them when I had so vague a report to make? What could I tell them? That I had seen shadows fighting? Heard a woman scream? Smelled smoke? Heard the report of a pistol? A whimsical thought came that the report of the pistol was the only definite report I could swear to!

Yet the whole scene was definite enough to me.

I had seen two men fighting,—shadows, to be sure, but shadows of real men. I had heard their voices raised in dissension of some sort, I had seen a scuffle and had heard a shot, of which I had afterward smelled the smoke, and,—most incriminating of all,—I had heard a woman’s scream. A scream, too, of terror, as for her life!

And then, I had immediately entered these rooms, and I had found them empty of all human presence, but with the smoke still hanging low, to prove my observations had been real, and no figment of my imagination.

I believed I had latent detective ability. Well, surely here was a chance to exercise it!

What more bewildering mystery could be desired than to witness a shooting, and, breaking in upon the scene, to find no victim, no criminal, and no weapon!

I hunted for the pistol, but found no more trace of that than of the hand that had fired it.

My brain felt queer; I said to myself, over and over, “a fight, a shot, a scream! No victim, no criminal, no weapon!”

I looked out in the hall again. I had already looked out two or three times, but I had seen no one. However, I didn’t suppose the villain and his victim had gone down by the elevator or by the stairway.

But where were they? And where was the woman who had screamed?

Perhaps it was she who had been shot. Why did I assume that Mr. Gately was the victim? Could not he have been the criminal?

The thought of Amos Gately in the rôle of murderer was a little too absurd! Still, the whole situation was absurd.

For me, Tom Brice, to be involved in this baffling 

 Prev. P 7/170 next