"This object that Spatola carried under his coat, now. Could it have been a bayonet?"

"No, no," said Berg with conviction. "It vos too big. It vos bigger as a half dozen bayonets already."

This seemed the limit of Berg's knowledge of the night's happenings; a few more questions and then Stillman dismissed him. The door had hardly closed when the telephone rang. After a few words, the coroner hung up the receiver and turned to his visitors.

"I think," said he, with a smile of satisfaction, "that I've made the police department sit up a little. They talked to all three of these people before I had them, and didn't seem to get enough to make a beginning. But just now," and the smile grew wider, "I've heard that Osborne is on his way to arrest Antonio Spatola."

[!-- H2 anchor --]

CHAPTER VI

ASHTON-KIRK LOOKS ABOUT

Berg was standing in the corridor waiting for the elevator when Ashton-Kirk and Pendleton came out. The big German mopped his face with a handkerchief, and said apologetically:

"A man can only tell what he knows, ain't it?"

Ashton-Kirk looked at him questioningly, but said nothing.