“And I suppose they blamed you for it.”

“Sure they did.  I was laid off for a week, without pay.  If anything happens it is always the poor copper who is to blame.”

“Well, the family are not blaming you for this.”

“They can’t—­especially as they’ve got the person who did the deed.”

At this Thomas Ostrello shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t know about that.”

“You don’t?”

“No.  I’d hate to believe any girl could do such a fearful thing as this.”  The commercial traveler paused.  “I’m going to take a look around.  I suppose it’s all right.”

“Certainly, Mr. Ostrello,” answered the policeman, and then the commercial man stepped into the library, closing the door after him.

Adam Adams had passed into the dining room, just back of the library, but had heard what was said.  Now, looking through the doorway, which had a sliding door and a heavy curtain, the latter partly drawn, he saw the man glance around hurriedly, moving from one object to another in the library.  He looked under the table and the chairs, in the corners, and even into the various bookcases.  Then he came and knelt down before the safe, and tried the knob of the combination half a dozen times.

“He is more than ordinarily interested,” reasoned the detective.  “But then it was his own mother who was murdered.”

The commercial man continued his search until he had covered every object in the room several times.  He even looked behind the pictures, and into the drawer of the table, something which had escaped the coroner’s eye when sealing up the desk.  Adam Adams saw him shake his head in despair.  He took a turn up and down the apartment and clenched his hands nervously.

“Gone!” he muttered to himself.  “What could have become of it?”

He drew from his pocket a notebook he carried, and studied several items carefully.  A long sigh escaped from his lips as he restored the notebook to his pocket.

As the commercial traveler moved toward the dining room, the detective stepped into a side apartment, used in the winter as a conservatory.  He saw Thomas Ostrello make an examination of several places, including a sideboard.  Then the woman who had been placed in charge of the downstairs portion of the mansion entered.

“Won’t you have a bite to eat, Mr. Ostrello?” she asked.

“Perhaps so, later on.  I do not feel like eating now.  Can I take a look at my mother’s room?”

“Why, yes.  I suppose you know where it is?”

“Certainly; I often visited her there when she was not feeling well,”

He passed out without another word, and was soon mounting the heavily-carpeted stairs.  Once in the room, he closed the door tightly.  Coming up softly after him, Adam Adams tried the door and found it locked.  More interested than ever, the detective, just avoiding Mrs. Morse, who was passing through the hallway, slipped Into the adjoining room, and finding, as he had imagined, a door between the two, applied his eye to the keyhole.