“No.  The sum is a good one and I could use it; but I will not waste my energy on a case I do not believe in.  The man shot himself.  He was a speculator, and probably had good reason for his act.  Even his wife acknowledges that he has lately had more losses than gains.”

“See her.  She has something to tell you which never got into the papers.”

“You say that?  You know that?”

“On my honour, Miss Strange.”

Violet pondered; then suddenly succumbed.

“Let her come, then.  Prompt to the hour.  I will receive her at three.  Later I have a tea and two party calls to make.”

Her visitor rose to leave.  He had been able to subdue all evidence of his extreme gratification, and now took on a formal air.  In dismissing a guest, Miss Strange was invariably the society belle and that only.  This he had come to recognize.

The case (well known at the time) was, in the fewest possible words, as follows: 

On a sultry night in September, a young couple living in one of the large apartment houses in the extreme upper portion of Manhattan were so annoyed by the incessant crying of a child in the adjoining suite, that they got up, he to smoke, and she to sit in the window for a possible breath of cool air.  They were congratulating themselves upon the wisdom they had shown in thus giving up all thought of sleep—­for the child’s crying had not ceased—­when (it may have been two o’clock and it may have been a little later) there came from somewhere near, the sharp and somewhat peculiar detonation of a pistol-shot.

He thought it came from above; she, from the rear, and they were staring at each other in the helpless wonder of the moment, when they were struck by the silence.  The baby had ceased to cry.  All was as still in the adjoining apartment as in their own—­too still—­much too still.  Their mutual stare turned to one of horror.  “It came from there!” whispered the wife.  “Some accident has occurred to Mr. or Mrs. Hammond—­we ought to go—­”

Her words—­very tremulous ones—­were broken by a shout from below.  They were standing in their window and had evidently been seen by a passing policeman.  “Anything wrong up there?” they heard him cry.  Mr. Saunders immediately looked out.  “Nothing wrong here,” he called down. (They were but two stories from the pavement.) “But I’m not so sure about the rear apartment.  We thought we heard a shot.  Hadn’t you better come up, officer?  My wife is nervous about it.  I’ll meet you at the stair-head and show you the way.”

The officer nodded and stepped in.  The young couple hastily donned some wraps, and, by the time he appeared on their floor, they were ready to accompany him.

Meanwhile, no disturbance was apparent anywhere else in the house, until the policeman rang the bell of the Hammond apartment.  Then, voices began to be heard, and doors to open above and below, but not the one before which the policeman stood.