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it.
    â€œThat’s all of it,” Spencer said. “I was there. You could make a motive out of what I’ve told you. There isn’t anything else. I can’t prove I didn’t give her whatever she died of. I don’t even know what it was. I didn’t see anything suspicious, so I can’t put you on a trail.”
    This time it was Weigand who established the silence and let it lie in the office. And it was Spencer who suddenly leaned forward in his chair.
    â€œWell, Lieutenant?” he said.
    Bill Weigand looked at him, with no particular expression, and shook his head.
    â€œIt’s not that easy, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “You can see that. You know what the truth is, so far as you are concerned. You have the advantage of me. I don’t know. All I know is what you say.”
    â€œWhich,” Spencer said, “you see no reason to believe.”
    It was not a question. But Bill Weigand said it was not even that easy.
    â€œWhich,” he said, “I have no grounds to form an opinion on. At the moment, it is equally possible you are telling the truth and lying. There is nothing impossible in your story, as you know. Since you are not, so far as I can see, a fool, there wouldn’t be anything impossible in the story. I’ll have to look into it.”
    â€œAnd let me know,” Spencer finished.
    He need have no doubt of that, Weigand promised him, and there was a certain grimness in his promise. Meanwhile, Mr. Spencer would—
    â€œHold myself available,” Spencer finished. “Or do you hold me available?”
    Weigand smiled pleasantly, and told him the former, by all means.
    â€œOf course,” he said, “we might take a hand if it became necessary. I assume it won’t. I assume we’ll be able to find you at your room when we want you.”
    Spencer stood up. Weigand looked up at him, saying nothing. Spencer hesitated a moment, as if he were about to say more, and then said, “Well, all right” in an uncertain fashion, and then, “Good-bye.”
    â€œGood-bye, Mr. Spencer,” Weigand said, politely. “Probably I’ll be seeing you.”
    Spencer did not look happy. He went. Mullins, looking after him, shook his head.
    â€œO’Malley,” Mullins said, “ain’t going to like it, Loot. Next best to suicide, this guy Spencer is. Opportunity, motive, present on the scene, false name—hell, he’s made for it.”
    Bill said he gathered Mullins wasn’t buying Spencer’s story. Mullins shrugged. He said it wasn’t him, it was the inspector. He looked at Weigand.
    â€œHow about you, Loot?” he said.
    Weigand’s fingers were drumming gently on his desk. He did not look up. For a moment he did not speak. Then he said he didn’t like coincidences.
    â€œIt needs a lot of believing, Spencer’s story,” he said. “But, as I told him, it’s possible. And we can’t hang him on it. O’Malley couldn’t, I couldn’t. The commissioner couldn’t or the D.A., so we waits and sees.”
    Again Mullins waited. He saw Weigand look at the watch on his wrist, and then up at the clock on the wall. Weigand said they ought to be hearing from Stein. Mullins looked enquiring. Weigand said Stein was at the lawyers’ office.
    â€œWilliams, Franke and something or other,” he said. “Miss Gipson’s attorneys. Attorneys for the estate she was handling. The people who know—”
    The telephone on his desk rang and he spoke into it. He said, “All right, Stein, come along up.” He replaced the receiver and said, “Speaking of coincidences.”
    They waited, looking at the door, and Detective Sergeant Stein came in. He was a trim, slender man in his thirties, with dark, absorbed eyes. He sat down where Spencer had sat. He said he had seen a man named Mason. He said Mason had given him the dope.
    Amelia Gipson was the