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of the information he was really after, since Roberts would not know the real object of his search. Superintendent Battle opened and shut drawers, rifled pigeonholes, glanced through a checkbook, estimated the unpaid bills - noted what those same bills were for, scrutinized Roberts's passbook, ran through his case notes, and generally left no written document unturned. The result was meager in the extreme. He next took a look through the poison cupboard, noted the wholesale firms with which the doctor dealt, and the system of checking, re-locked the cupboard, and passed on to the bureau. The contents of the latter were of a more personal nature, but Battle found nothing germane to his search. He shook his head, sat down in the doctor's chair, and pressed the desk button.
    Miss Burgess appeared with promptitude.
    Superintendent Battle asked her politely to be seated and then sat studying her for a moment, before he decided which way to tackle her. He had sensed immediately her hostility, and he was uncertain whether to provoke her into unguarded speech by increasing that hostility or whether to try a softer method of approach.
    “I suppose you know what all this is about, Miss Burgess,” he said at last.
    “Doctor Roberts told me,” said Miss Burgess shortly.
    “The whole thing's rather delicate,” said Superintendent Battle.
    “Is it?” said Miss Burgess.
    “Well, it's rather a nasty business. Four people are under suspicion and one of them must have done it. What I want to know is whether you've ever seen this Mr. Shaitana?”
    “Never.”
    “Ever heard Doctor Roberts speak of him?”
    “Never - No, I am wrong. About a week ago Doctor Roberts told me to enter a dinner appointment in his engagement book. Mr. Shaitana, eight-fifteen on the eighteenth.”
    “And that is the first you ever heard of this Mr. Shaitana?”
    “Yes.”
    “Never seen his name in the papers? He was often in the fashionable news.”
    “I've got better things to do than reading the fashionable news.”
    “I expect you have. Oh, I expect you have,” said the superintendent mildly.
    “Well,” he went on. “There it is. All four of these people will only admit to knowing Mr. Shaitana slightly. But one of them knew him well enough to kill him. It's my job to find out which of them it was.”
    There was an unhelpful pause. Miss Burgess seemed quite uninterested in the performance of Superintendent Battle's job. It was her job to obey her employer's orders and sit here listening to what Superintendent Battle chose to say and answer any direct questions he might choose to put to her.
    “You know, Miss Burgess,” the superintendent found it uphill work but he persevered, “I doubt if you appreciate half the difficulties of our job. People say things, for instance. Well, we mayn't believe a word of it but we've got to take notice of it all the same. It's particularly noticeable in a case of this kind. I don't want to say anything against your sex but there's no doubt that a woman when she's rattled, is apt to lash out with her tongue a bit. She makes unfounded accusations, hints this, that and the other, and rakes up all sorts of old scandals that have probably nothing whatever to do with the case.”
    “Do you mean,” demanded Miss Burgess, “that one of these other people has been saying things against the doctor?”
    “Not exactly said anything,” said Battle cautiously. “But all the same, I'm bound to take notice. Suspicious circumstances about the death of a patient. Probably all a lot of nonsense. I'm ashamed to bother the doctor with it.”
    “I suppose someone's got hold of that story about Mrs. Graves,” said Miss Burgess wrathfully. “The way people talk about things they know nothing whatever about is disgraceful. Lots of old ladies get like that; they think everybody is poisoning them - their relations and their servants and even their doctors. Mrs. Graves had had three doctors before she came to Doctor Roberts, and