“Isn’t it unlikely,” said Fleming Stone quietly, “that a noted burglar should enter a house and commit murder, without making any attempt to steal?”

“He may have been frightened away by the sound of Schuyler’s latchkey,” suggested Rob, and Kitty looked at him with pride in his ingenuity, and thought how much cleverer he was, after all, than the celebrated Fleming Stone.

Fessenden urged Mr. Fairbanks to go at once and look up the whereabouts of Slim Jim, and the detective was strongly inclined to go.