The watching men stared. But as the smoke thinned, all eyes turned instinctively to the other end of the room.
For their ears had heard an answering sound — a sharp crack that had followed the report of the gun. It had come with the pistol shot, sharper even than the explosion from behind the radiator.
The clay bust of Silas Harshaw had been shattered by the bullet from the hidden weapon. Its broken pieces were upon the footstool and upon the floor.
Amid the chunks of hardened clay lay two compactly folded wads of paper.
Biscayne called to Wilhelm to hold the one side of the radiator. Springing across the room, the professor seized the wads of paper.
He rapidly unfolded one and thrust it in the hands of Commissioner Weston.
“It looks like plans,” said the commissioner. “Diagrams, traced on thin paper—”
Biscayne was opening the other wad. His spectacled eyes peered eagerly. He showed it to Weston.
The paper bore a written statement that was headed by a list of names.
“Harshaw’s enemies,” declared Biscayne soberly. “The plans — the men he feared — they were in his head. That is what he said.”