“Yes. She said Mr. Koven wasn’t up yet and Miss Lowell was in his office waiting to see him. Miss Lowell has extremely good judgment, and I went up to consult her. She disapproved of Mr. Getz’s suggestion, and we discussed various matters, and mention was made of the gun Mr. Koven kept in his desk drawer. I pulled the drawer open just to look at it, with no special purpose, merely to look at it, and closed the drawer again. Shortly afterward I returned downstairs.”

“Was the gun there in the drawer?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take it out?”

“No. Neither did Miss Lowell. We didn’t touch it.”

“But you recognized it as the same gun?”

“I can’t say that I did, no. I had never examined the gun, never had it in my hand. I can only say that it looked the same as before. It was my opinion that our concern about the gun being kept there was quite childish, but I see now that I was wrong. After what happened today—”

“Yeah.” Cramer cut him off. “Concern about a loaded gun is never childish. That’s all I’m after now. Sunday morning, in Miss Lowell’s presence, you opened the drawer of Koven’s desk and saw the gun which you took to be the gun you had seen there before. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct,” Hildebrand squeaked.

“Okay, that’s all.” Cramer nodded at Sol. “Take him back to Rowcliff.”