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display in the auction rooms. He was all set to pawn his wife’s pearls so he’d have funds enough to outbid everybody else. But first he wanted to check up on his guess. It was a clever idea, too.”
    “Yes, wasn’t it?” Miss Withers put in. She approached the easel admiringly.
    “Notice, Oscar, how the artist smoothed the lovely cobalt blue of the velvet cap, using his thumb as most artists do.
    “Thumbprints in pigment, imagine! And Dr. Brotherly got permission from the Metropolitan to photograph prints on a genuine Holbein, and on Monday afternoon brought the enlarged print to the auction galleries to compare. Only someone found him, interrupted his work. And the poor man had barely time to thrust the photo inside his shirt!”
    Louis Hamish went quietly on restoring the painting.
    “Yeah,” Piper put in. “Somebody realized that Brotherly was wise and managed to strangle him with a silk scarf, stick the body afterward into the nearest large piece of furniture. That’s the story, Hamish.”
    “Ingenious, yes,” Hamish admitted. “But you don’t think all this applies to me?”
    “You bought this painting, didn’t you? You were going to buy the wardrobe, and sneak the body out … ”
    “Please don’t shout, Inspector. Understand that I’m not a collector, I’m a buyer. I act as agent for museums, galleries and private collectors.”
    “Well, who hired you to buy last night?”
    Hamish looked at his watch.
    “The real owner of the Holbein — if it is one — is on his way down here now, with the intention of taking it on the next plane for Chicago. You will, both of you, be somewhat surprised when you see who it is, but you’ll realize that it would be impossible for this person to have bid for it.”
    There was a knock on the door, a voice called “Louis!”
    “Ladies and gentlemen, the murderer of Dr. Brotherly,” said Hamish softly. He crossed the floor, swung open the door. A man burst excitedly in, leaving it ajar behind him. It was Paul Varden, auctioneer of the Sutton Galleries.
    “Well, Louis! There’s the devil to pay!” His voice trailed away as he saw the others, and his face blanched into a guilty mask.
    “Talk, and talk fast! ” Piper barked. “Does that picture on the easel belong to you? Did you hire Hamish to bid it in for you?”
    “ Why, this — this — ” he fumbled. “Who says so?”
    “Did you make a telephone call to the Brotherly home, and send a fake telegram, all calculated to make the family think him alive and hiding from some mysterious Yellow Peril?”
    “I don’t know what this is all about, but I — I—”
    Hamish spoke. “I had to tell them, Paul, old chap. I’m not going to jail to save you. I just admitted you were coming to get your picture.”
    Not until then did the fog-horn voice of Mr. Paul Varden return full blast. He called upon everybody to witness that he had come simply to warn Hamish about — well, about the fuss the police were making over his having smuggled something out of the auction room windows last night.
    Louis Hamish was back at the easel, thoughtfully continuing with the restoration job as if he had no interest in anything else. “Stop looking at me!” Varden howled at the Inspector. “I never killed anybody! You’ve got to believe me — try the lie-detector, try anything.”
    “I’ll try frisking you,” Piper said. A moment later he took a small package from the auctioneer’s coat, a package containing opalescent globules.
    “Mrs. Brotherly’s pearls!” breathed Miss Hildegarde Withers. Piper nodded. “Well, Mr. Paul Varden — ” He took out handcuffs, snapped them on the wrists of the cringing auctioneer. “You’re taking a ride.”
    “Yes, of course,” came an interrupting voice. “But not quite yet, Oscar. Haven’t you forgotten something?”
    They all stared at Miss Withers. Piper glared at her.
    She pointed to the brown-paper package. “I mean the shoes we found in the apartment up at the Hotel