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Hutchins reached the Locke apartment the inquiry was already in progress. Doctor Babcock was conducting it, and though an able and shrewd questioner, he was glad of Hutchins’s presence.

For Lieutenant Hutchins was looked upon as one of the most far-seeing and quick-witted of the Homicide Squad of the Detective Bureau, and Babcock wanted him to hear every word of the evidence.

Not that there was much evidence. It was a baffling case.

Thomas Locke seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, and yet except for the fact of that vanishing there was no reason to connect him in any way with the murder of Madeleine Barham.

No proof; indeed, no suggestion of acquaintance between the two could be discovered.

The medical examiner well knew that it was not an unknown case for a wife to have friends of whom her husband knew nothing, but that fact couldn’t prove any thing in the present instance.

All the guests of the night before had been allowed to go to their homes because of the utter absence of any sort of evidence to warrant their detention or even further questioning, except for three friends, who were said to be Locke’s intimates.

These three, Miss Vallon, Miss Cutler and Mr. Post, had been summoned to the inquiry, and Rodman Jarvis, of course, was there.