"Quite the contrary."
"Bertha was upstairs, Floyd in the study, Ellen, the cook, had just gone out. After awhile the barking of the St. Bernard in the study aroused the girl. Something was wrong. She ran down, opened the study door and fell back before a live crater of smoke and flame. Accident, we agree, is out of the question. The front door was locked. There was no approach to the study (up one flight, remember) from the street, unless you raised a ladder to the window, and half the neighborhood would have seen this. At least I'm sure the bake-shop girl, Senda Wesner, would have seen it. The previous actions of Floyd were those of a criminal meditating crime; his subsequent course until 7:30 he refuses to explain."
"But the motive, McCausland?" said the district attorney gravely. McCausland contracted his beady eyelets till they shone like two pin punctures in a lighted jack-o'-lantern. But a knock at the door delayed his answer. The bloodhound promptly arose, grasped the knob in his forepaws, and turning it skillfully, admitted a mulatto attendant in fatigue uniform, the bloodhound's master patting him approvingly for the performance.
"Officer Costa to see the inspector," said the attendant.
"Send him in," answered McCausland. "One of my fetch-and-carry dogs—willing enough, but no hawk."
"I've looked the matter up," said Officer Costa, saluting, and glancing from McCausland to the district attorney.
"With what result?"
"Dennis Mungovan and Ellen Greeley were privately married on June 18, before Justice of the Peace Gustavus Schwab, at 126 Harlow street," said Costa, as if proud of his morsel of information and its precision of detail.
"Is this our Mungovan?" asked the district attorney, evincing keen interest.
"What was his description, Costa?" said McCausland.