CHAPTER I.

Bertha Fenton pushed open the door of her tiny room on the "Weekly Informer" and, moving inside, dropped into a woven-cane chair near the table. For a while she sat limply, yielding to the pleasure of complete relaxation. The mirror on the opposite wall threw back her reflection—a dumpy, untidily dressed, middle-aged woman with sharp, almost cunning features centring about an arrogant beak of a nose. With her mousy hair drawn back and cut as short as a man's, Bertha Fenton looked every day her forty-three years.

A knock on the door aroused her. She peered through the grey haze of tobacco-smoke at the copy-boy who stood in the entrance. He pushed a sleek, pomaded head into the room.

"Mr. Armitage wants you, Miss Fenton."

Bertha made her way into the news editor's room and crossed to his desk.

Herbert Armitage, a prematurely bald young man wearing thick-lensed spectacles, leaned back in his swivel chair and waved a slip of paper. "Carstairs, nosing round the detective office this morning, ran across a pretty definite rumour that Judge Sheldon had been murdered—"

The woman sat up, her indifference dropping like a garment. "Not Sheldon, the K.C.M.G. of Spring Street?"

Armitage nodded; "The same man. It's a wonderful story—if it's genuine."

"There's just a chance that the dailies may not get on to it until late this afternoon," he said. "There's only one thing for you to do, Bertha. Get around there and bluff your way inside somehow. Keep your eyes open and don't let a word out to those daily scroungers."

In the office of the "Informer" Bertha Fenton stood out as an individual, unique almost. But the moment she set foot in the street the great moving throng swallowed her, and her eccentricities were lost in the bewildering kaleidoscope of colour and motion that packed the pavements and overflowed on to the streets.

Carnavon Chambers was a new block of apartments built at the top end of Spring Street. A policeman stood waiting under the striped canvas awning that decorated the entrance. He knew Bertha, and grinned as she approached. "You're the fourth," he told her. "Talk about vultures around a corpse."

The woman halted, standing with feet apart. "Don't be so damned crude, Thomas," she admonished. "Three here, you say? Who are the others?"

"Wilkinson from the 'Courier,' another new chap from the Associated Press—don't know his name—and that fair-haired mother's boy from the 'Globe.' Lascelles, isn't it?" Constable Graves eyed her closely. "How'd you come to get in on this, anyhow?"

"That well-known little bird," Bertha told him airily. She shrugged her shoulders and spoke quickly.

"Who's looking around for the Department?"

Graves considered a moment. "Four of them. Burford, the Coroner Doc Conroy, O'Connor the plain-clothes man, and the fingerprint boys."

"And who's in charge?"

"Denis O'Connor temporarily. They're waiting for Chief Inspector Read."

Bertha pursed her lips. "So-o—? It's that big, is it? The Chief Inspector himself?"

The constable nodded portentously. "In the flesh," he added impressively.

"Then I'm going up," Miss Fenton said abruptly

Like a bird zooming for cover, the elevator soared upward.

The steel cage slid to a stop, and Bertha, stepping out, found herself in a long, brown-panelled corridor. A few paces away from the lift-shaft, a narrow, circular staircase wound downwards. Outside an opening half-way down the corridor two uniformed policemen stood. They watched her suspiciously as she approached, and one, after a whispered conference with his companion, began to walk toward her. Bertha cursed under her breath. If they were going to be officious...

"You're not allowed along here, madam," the policeman told her brusquely. Six feet of blue uniform blocked her way so that she was forced to halt. Bertha stiffened. She fumbled in her bag and produced a tiny leather-and-cardboard square.

"I'm from the 'Weekly Informer,'" she said curtly. "Here's my Press pass."

The constable did not even glance at it. Neither did he move. "I don't care who you are or where you're from," he returned. "You can't come along here."

The woman checked the hot retort that rose to her lips. She realized that it would be foolish to quarrel with these officials at such a time. Producing a card and pencil, she scribbled a few hasty lines and handed the card to the constable.

"Would you mind taking that inside to Mr. O'Connor?" she said, trying to keep the harshness out of her voice.

Miss Fenton waited impatiently, a square-toed shoe drumming the carpet. So! They were trying to keep the Press out of this thing. Wilkinson, Lascelles, and the A.P. man must have got in with the first alarm at headquarters before the police realized the seriousness of the business. They had apparently given orders that all other reporters were to be refused admission. What luck that she happened to know Denis O'Connor! Because, the more dailies excluded from this murder, the more chance for the "Weekly Informer."

The constable returned and was beckoning to her. Bertha allowed herself a sniff, eloquent of the contempt she felt for this underling. Tossing her head, she strode past like a triumphant Amazon.

She was standing in what was apparently a bedroom, a small apartment made to appear larger by the skilful arrangement of the furnishings. Her eyes made a swift survey, took in the low bed, covered with scarlet satin eiderdown, the built-in cupboard and wardrobe, the inlaid table near the bed with its pipe and tobacco-jar, and the small bookcase standing in the far corner. On the opposite side of the room, a door leading to a larger apartment had been torn from its hinges and lay askew, portions of the shattered woodwork splintering about the lock. Bertha was staring at this ruin when it was pushed aside and O'Connor, a thick-set giant of a man with curly hair surmounting a good-natured moon-face, came out. He glanced at her and nodded.

"It certainly never pays to ask a presswoman a favour," he complained. "Sooner or later they'll ask for it back a hundredfold." But the twinkle in his blue eyes belied the tone.

Bertha Fenton grinned and took his hand in a grip firm as a man's. "You know these men, of course?" O'Connor was saying.

The woman nodded and glanced around, exchanging greetings. She recognized the stocky, dapper man with a dark moustache as Dyke Wilkinson, while the tall blond boy standing by the bed was Gilbert Lascelles of the "Globe." The third man had her puzzled for a moment, although she remembered having seen those pleasant, regular features photographed in a trade paper. Then the young man himself came forward, hand outstretched.

"Miss Fenton, isn't it?" he said. "My name is Yates—Martin Yates. I'm the new man on the Associated Press. Took Ken Hubbard's place about a month ago."

The detective spoke quietly.

"It's a bad business, Miss Fenton. We can't hope to hush it up, but we don't want a line more publicity than we can help. Especially at this early stage. In fact, they're getting the new Chief Inspector on the job—the big chief from London. The Coroner and the medical examiner are inside now, with Larsen, the finger-print man. I'll take you inside as soon as they're through. But you must promise to publish nothing save what we—the Chief, that is—actually gives you."

"Does that go for the others?" the woman demanded.

"Naturally."

"Then it suits me." Bertha tossed her bag and hat on the bed and sat down. "Now, what's it all about?"

O'Connor thrust his hands in his pockets. "There's not much we actually know," he said. "Briefly, it amounts to this. Judge Sheldon who has been renting this apartment for about two years, came out of that inner room about seven o'clock last night. He told his man, Hoskins, to take the evening off. The servant watched him return to that apartment, lock himself in, and cross to his desk. Then Hoskins went to his own room (which is farther down the corridor), dressed, and left the building, to return about eleven o'clock and go straight to bed. He says he rose about seven o'clock this morning, came in here, and discovered his master's bed had not been slept in. Crossing to the door of the inner room, he found it still locked, so he knocked. There was no answer. Believing that the judge must have spent the night away, he did not worry until about nine-fifteen, when something happened that aroused his fears."

Bertha, following this recital closely, looked up. "What was that?"

"At that time, the telephone-girl in the desk downstairs came to Hoskins and asked what was the matter with Judge Sheldon's telephone," O'Connor explained. "She said that the Judge had forgotten to replace the receiver on the hook, and although she had rung him several times in the morning he had not answered. This made Hoskins suspicious. While the manager telephoned police headquarters, three porters broke in the door of the apartment." The detective paused for breath. "They found the Judge sitting behind his desk. He was dead—stabbed in the back."

Miss Fenton nodded slowly. "I suppose it was murder?" she said shrewdly.

The detective looked, at her. "Suicide?"...