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Thirty feet of wire strung across the angle could reach it and a good tight-wire walker—”
    â€œOkay, Maurer.” The Inspector’s nose wiggled as if it had been hit with a bad smell. “That one too.” He gave Diavolo a sour look. “Maybe he should ask if anybody’s seen a murder floating by in a parachute?”
    From the anteroom outside a detective’s voice came saying, “Hey, not so fast, lady! You’re staying.”
    An indignant feminine voice replied, “Take your hands off me! I—I—this seems to be the wrong office.”
    Inspector Church hurried to the communicating door. “What is it, Branner?”
    â€œThis dame,” the latter said. “She came in from the hall. When she saw cops she turns tail and tries to lam. I grabbed her. I thought maybe you’d better—”
    Church looked at her. “What’s your name?” he asked.
    The catch Branner had made was a nice one, five feet of dark Spanish beauty — and dynamite. Her eyes, from behind the lacy veil of her smart hat, were round and frightened, but they flashed fire just the same. And she made no answer to the Inspector’s question.
    Church turned to Miss Skinner who sat at her desk twisting a small handkerchief with nervous fingers. “Who is she, do you know?”
    Blondie nodded, staring at the woman, “Yes. She … She …” The secretary seemed to have trouble talking under the dirty look that Branner’s prisoner was throwing her way. “Her husband works on the Hagenbaugh-Powers show. She is Mrs. Juan Belmonte.”
    â€œBelmonte.” Church repeated, a dim memory stirring somewhere within him. “What does he do?”
    The Inspector should never have asked that.
    Miss Skinner’s answer crackled with a high voltage charge. “He’s a tightwire walker.”

    3 The Invisible Man case to which the Inspector referred, that curiously inexplicable affair that concerned the murder at Headquarters, the Siva statue, and the Queen’s necklace, has previously been published in these columns under the title: Death From Thin Air.

C HAPTER V
    Ways of Departure
    C ONSIDERING what he had been through already the Inspector took that one on the chin remarkably well. He merely glared at Don Diavolo; then growled, “Keep both eyes on him, Brophy,” and went out into the anteroom. He did, however, give the door a good hearty slam as he went.
    Diavolo moved forward, hands in his pockets toward the window.
    Brophy said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
    â€œDo you have to yell at me too?” Don asked him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going far, not out this window at any rate.” Don stooped and from the floor just behind the corner of the screen, picked up an object that he would not have expected to find in a busy executive’s office.
    It was a large damp sponge. “I wonder,” he said aloud, “what that would be doing here?”
    Brophy was touchy. “Put it down,” he ordered brusquely. “Don’t handle things. Maybe the guy you say bopped you took a bath here.” He nodded at the dampness on the carpet and the bare footprint. “That looks like it.”
    â€œThen he hit me with the bathtub which he took with him when he left? Or maybe he was a snowman and he vanished by melting. Brophy, I don’t like this much. I still don’t see how …” Don’s voice trailed off as a thought hit him.
    Brophy said, “The Inspector don’t like it either. If I was you I’d get a better story than the one you got. A murderer nobody saw socks you on the skull, and then does a tight-wire walking act out the window twenty stories up, leaving you to take the rap. Well, it ain’t so hot.”
    â€œMaybe he’s a smart murderer,” Don said thoughtfully. “Leaving the scene of the crime by a method no one is going to believe, is a