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Chan shrugged. “Something we do not possess,” he pointed out. He went on to repeat Shelah Fane’s story of her presence at the murder of Denny Mayo—the tale she had told Tarneverro, according to the fortune-teller, that morning.

“Fine—fine,” cried the Chief. “That gives you the motive, Charlie. Now if she had only written down the name, as this Tarneverro wanted her to———”

With acute distaste, Charlie added the incident of the letter’s loss. His Chief looked at him with surprise and a marked disapproval.

“Never knew anything like that to happen to you before. Losing your grip, Charlie?”

“For a moment, I certainly lost grip and letter too,” Chan replied ruefully. “As the matter turned out, it did not have much importance.” His face brightened as he added the later discovery of the letter under the rug, proving that it was of no value save as a corroboration of Tarneverro’s story. He went on to the destruction of the portrait over which Shelah Fane had been seen weeping bitterly in the afternoon.

“Some one didn’t want you to see it,” frowned the Chief.

“I arrived at the same deduction myself,” Charlie admitted. He pictured the arrival of Robert Fyfe on what was obviously his second visit to Waikiki within a few hours, and then turned to the subject of the beach-comber.

“We took his finger-prints and let him go,” put in the Chief. “He hasn’t nerve enough to kill a fly.”

Chan nodded. “You are no doubt correct in such surmise.” His report of Fyfe’s subsequent, easily punctured confession, evidently puzzled his superior. He