the fare of our cab a few minutes later and entered his office.

"Yes," I agreed. "Why, he's even stumped at the start by the
mystery of there being no bullet. I'm glad you said nothing about
the cartridge, although I can't see for the life of me what good
it is to us."

I had ventured the remark, hoping to entice Garrick into talking.
It worked, at least as far as Garrick wanted to talk yet.

"You'll see about the cartridge soon enough, Tom," he rejoined.
"As for there being no bullet, there was a bullet--only it was of
a kind you never dreamed of before."

He regarded me contemplatively for a moment, then leaned over and
in a voice full of meaning, concluded, "That bullet was composed
of something soft or liquid, probably confined in some kind of
thin capsule. It mushroomed out like a dumdum bullet. It was
deadly. But the chief advantage was that the heat that remained in
Rena Taylor's body melted all evidence of the bullet. That was
what caused that greasy, oleaginous appearance of the wound. The
murderer thought he left no trail in the bullet in the corpse. In
other words, it was practically a liquid bullet."




CHAPTER V

THE BLACKMAILER