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APTAIN LEWIS looked up with a grin as Odell entered the bureau at Police Headquarters that evening and sank into a chair beside the big desk.

"I thought there must be something doing when you 'phoned down for eight of the boys to-day," he commented. "What's going on at the Meade house?"

"Murder," responded Odell succinctly. "Systematic murder on a bigger scale than this city has known for years, and an inside job. Someone is trying to wipe out the whole family. Captain; and I have struck a million clues and no motive. In all the five years I have been on your staff I've never seen anything to equal this case."

The captain gave a low whistle.

"Murder, eh? Sure of it, Odell?"

"Does a man cut his own throat by accident, severing the jugular vein; drop his razor, grope around with bloody hands to save himself, and then before he dies hunt for that razor so that he shall be found with it in his hand?" demanded the detective. "You know how young Julian Chalmers was supposed to have died last week. I have proof that someone took his razor from him, cut his throat with it, and then slipped it back into his hand as he lay dead; but they didn't take into consideration the fact that 128