“That’s right,” agreed Garrick.  “And the underworld isn’t alone in that feeling.  No one likes a ‘snitch.’”

“Bet your life,” emphasized Herman heartily, then edging toward the door, he said, “Well, gentlemen, I’m glad to meet you and I’ll work with you.  I wish you success, all right.  It’s a hard case.  Why, there wasn’t any trace of a murder or violence in that place in which Rena Taylor must have been murdered.  I suppose you have heard that there wasn’t any bullet found in the body, either?”

“Yes,” answered Garrick, “so far it does look inexplicable.”

Inspector Herman withdrew.  One could see that he had little faith in these “amateur” detectives.

A telephone message for Dillon about another departmental matter terminated our interview and we went our several ways.

“Much help I’ve ever got from a regular detective like Herman,” remarked Garrick, phrasing my own idea of the matter, as we paid the fare of our cab a few minutes later and entered his office.

“Yes,” I agreed.  “Why, he’s even stumped at the start by the mystery of there being no bullet.  I’m glad you said nothing about the cartridge, although I can’t see for the life of me what good it is to us.”

I had ventured the remark, hoping to entice Garrick into talking.  It worked, at least as far as Garrick wanted to talk yet.

“You’ll see about the cartridge soon enough, Tom,” he rejoined.  “As for there being no bullet, there was a bullet—­only it was of a kind you never dreamed of before.”

He regarded me contemplatively for a moment, then leaned over and in a voice full of meaning, concluded, “That bullet was composed of something soft or liquid, probably confined in some kind of thin capsule.  It mushroomed out like a dumdum bullet.  It was deadly.  But the chief advantage was that the heat that remained in Rena Taylor’s body melted all evidence of the bullet.  That was what caused that greasy, oleaginous appearance of the wound.  The murderer thought he left no trail in the bullet in the corpse.  In other words, it was practically a liquid bullet.”

CHAPTER V

THE BLACKMAILER

It was late in the afternoon, while Garrick was still busy with a high-powered microscope, making innumerable micro-photographs, when the door of the office opened softly and a young lady entered.

As she advanced timidly to us, we could see that she was tall and gave promise of developing with years into a stately woman—­a pronounced brunette, with sparkling black eyes.  I had not met her before, yet somehow I could not escape the feeling that she was familiar to me.

It was not until she spoke that I realized that it was the eyes, not the face, which I recognized.

“You are Mr. Garrick?” she asked of Guy in a soft, purring voice which, I felt, masked a woman who would fight to the end for anyone or anything she really loved.