“We have been investigating the strange death of a dog,” he began. “Chief Anderson, while we know your department would have done so in good time, we also know you are busy, and some of us,” he glanced at the dark window pane, “couldn’t wait. Will you help us now?”

The Chief said, genially, “That’s why I’m here, I guess.” It was the Judge and his stature that gave this meeting any standing. Naïve, young, a little absurd it might have seemed had not the old man sat so quietly attentive among them.

“Thank you, sir. Now, all we want to know is what happened to the dog.” Russell looked about him. “First, let us demolish the tramp.” Mrs. Page’s feathers ruffled. Russell smiled at her. “Mrs. Page saw a man go down Matlin’s drive this morning. The Salvage League sent a truck to pick up rags and papers which at ten forty-two was parked in front of the Daughertys’. The man, who seemed poorly dressed in his working clothes, went to the tool room behind Matlin’s garage, as he had been instructed to. He picked up a bundle and returned to his truck. Mrs. Page,” purred Mike to her scarlet face, “the man was there. It was only your opinion about him that proves to have been, not a lie, but an error.”

He turned his head. “Now, we have tried to trace the dog’s day and we have done remarkably well, too.” As he traced it for them, some faces began to wear at least the ghost of a smile, seeing the little dog frisking through the neighborhood. “Just before one,” Mike went on, “Bones ran across the Judge’s yard to the Allens’ where the kids were playing ball. Up to this time no one saw Bones above Greenwood Lane or up Hannibal Street. But Miss Diane Bourchard, recovering from a sore throat, was not in school today. After lunch, she sat on her porch directly across from Mr. Matlin’s back lot. She was waiting for school to be out, when she expected her friends to come by.

“She saw, not Bones, but Corky, an animal belonging to Mr. Daugherty, playing in Matlin’s lot at about two o’clock. I want your opinion. If poisoned bait had been lying there at two, would Corky have found it?”

“Seems so,” said Daugherty. “Thank God Corky didn’t.” He bit his tongue. “Corky’s a show dog,” he blundered.

“But Bones,” said Russell gently, “was more like a friend. That’s why we care, of course.”

“It’s a damned shame!” Daugherty looked around angrily.

“It is,” said Mrs. Baker. “He was a friend of mine, Bones was.”

“Go on,” growled Daugherty, “What else did you dig up?”

“Mr. Matlin left for his golf at eleven thirty. Now, you see, it looks as if Matlin couldn’t have left poison behind him.”