The wall was masked on the other side by a dense growth of shrubbery, and struggling through this, I found myself on the gravelled path where I had seen Marjorie Vaughan. Before me, along this path, sped a shadow which I knew to be Godfrey, and I followed at top speed. At the end of a moment, I caught a flash of light among the trees, and knew that we were nearing the house; but I saw no sign of Swain.
We came to the stretch of open lawn, crossed it, and, guided by the light, found ourselves at the end of a short avenue of trees. At the other end, a stream of light poured from an open door, and against that light a running figure was silhouetted. Even as I saw it, it bounded through the open door and vanished.
"It's Swain!" gasped Godfrey; and then we, too, were at that open door.
For an instant, I thought the room was empty. Then, from behind the table in the centre, a demoniac, blood-stained figure rose into view, holding in its arms a white-robed woman. With a sort of nervous shock, I saw that the man wasSwain, and the woman Marjorie Vaughan. A thrill of fear ran through me as I saw how her head fell backwards against his shoulder, how her arms hung limp....
Without so much as a glance in our direction, he laid her gently on a couch, fell to his knees beside it, and began to chafe her wrists.
It was Godfrey who mastered himself first, and who stepped forward to Swain's side.
"Is she dead?" he asked.
Swain shook his head impatiently, without looking up.
"How is she hurt?" Godfrey persisted, bending closer above the unconscious girl.
Swain shot him one red glance.
"She's not hurt!" he said, hoarsely. "She has fainted—that's all. Go away."
But Godfrey did not go away. After one burning look at Swain's lowering face, he bent again above the still figure on the couch, and touched his fingers to the temples. What he saw or felt seemed to reassure him, for his voice was more composed when he spoke again.
"I think you're right, Swain," he said. "But we'd better call someone."
"Call away!" snarled Swain.
"You mean there's no one here? Surely, her father ..."
He stopped, for at the words Swain had burst into a hoarse laugh.
"Her father!" he cried. "Oh, yes; he's here! Call him! He's over there!"
He made a wild gesture toward a high-backed easy-chair beside the table, his eyes gleaming with an almost fiendish excitement; then the gleam faded, and he turned back to the girl.
Godfrey cast one astonished glance at him and strode to the chair. I saw his face quiver with sudden horror, I saw him catch at the table for support, and for an instant he stood staring down. Then he turned stiffly toward me and motioned me to approach.
In the chair a man sat huddled forward—a grey-haired man, clad in a white robe. His hands were gripping the chair-arms as though in agony. His head hung down almost upon his knees.
Silently Godfrey reached down and raised the head. And a cry of horror burst from both of us.
The face was purple with congested blood, the tongue swollen and horribly protruding, the eyes suffused and starting from their sockets. And then, at a motion from Godfrey's finger, I saw that about the neck a cord was tightly knotted. The man had been strangled.
Godfrey, after a breathless moment in whichhe made sure that the man was quite dead, let the head fall forward again. It turned me sick to see how low it sagged, how limp it hung. And I saw that the collar of the white robe was spotted with blood.
I do not know what was in Godfrey's mind, but, by a common impulse, we turned and looked at Swain. He was still on his knees beside the couch. Apparently he had forgotten our presence.
"It's plain enough," said Godfrey, his voice thick with emotion. "She came in and found the body. No wonder she screamed like that! But where are the servants? Where is everybody?"
The same thought was in my own mind. The utter silence of the house, the fact that no one came, added, somehow, to the horror of the moment. Those wild screams must have echoed from cellar to garret—and yet no one came!
Godfrey made a rapid scrutiny of the room, which was evidently the library, with a double door opening upon the grounds and another opposite opening into the hall. On the wall beside the inner door, he found an electric button, and he pushed it for some moments, but there was no response. If it rang a bell, the bell was so far away that we could not hear it.
A heavy curtain hung across the doorway.Godfrey pulled it aside and peered into the hall beyond. The hall was dark and silent. With face decidedly grim, he took his torch from one pocket and his pistol from another.
"Come along, Lester," he said. "We've got to look into this. Have your torch ready—and your pistol. God knows what further horrors this house contains!"
He pulled back the curtain, so that the hall was lighted to some extent from the open doorway, and then passed through, I after him. The hall was a broad one, running right through the centre of the house from front to rear. Godfrey proceeded cautiously and yet rapidly the whole length of it, flashing his torch into every room. They were all luxuriously furnished, but were empty of human occupants. From the kitchen, which closed the hall at the rear, a flight of stone steps led down into the basement, and Godfrey descended these with a steadiness I could not but admire. We found ourselves in a square, stone-flagged room, evidently used as a laundry. Two doors opened out of it, but both were secured with heavy padlocks.
"Store-rooms or wine-cellars, perhaps," Godfrey ventured, mounted the stairs again to the kitchen, and returned to the room whence we had started.
Everything there was as we had left it. The dead man sat huddled forward in his chair; Swain was still on his knees beside the couch; the girl had not stirred. Godfrey went to the side of the couch, and, disregarding Swain's fierce glance, again placed his fingers lightly on the girl's left temple. Then he came back to me.
"If she doesn't revive pretty soon," he said, "we'll have to try heroic measures. But there must be somebody in the house. Let's look upstairs."
He led the way up the broad stairs, which rose midway of the hall, sending a long ray of light ahead of him. I followed in no very happy frame of mind, for I confess that this midnight exploration of an unknown house, with a murdered man for its only occupant, was getting on my nerves. But Godfrey proceeded calmly and systematically.
The hall above corresponded to that below, with two doors on each side, opening into bedroom suites. The first was probably that of the master of the house. It consisted of bedroom, bath and dressing-room, but there was no one there. The next was evidently Miss Vaughan's. It also had a bath and a daintily-furnished boudoir; but these, too, were empty.
Then, as we opened the door across the hall, a strange odour saluted us—an odour suggestivesomehow of the East—which, in the first moment, caught the breath from the throat, and in the second seemed to muffle and retard the beating of the heart.
A flash of Godfrey's torch showed that we were in a little entry, closed at the farther end by a heavy drapery. Godfrey strode forward and swept the drapery aside. The rush of perfume was over-powering, and through the opening came a soft glow of light.
It was a moment before I got my breath; then a mist seemed to fall from before my eyes and a strange sense of exaltation and well-being stole through me. I saw Godfrey standing motionless, transfixed, with one hand holding back the drapery, and his torch hanging unused in the other, and I crept forward and peered over his shoulder at the strangest scene I have ever gazed upon.
Just in front of us, poised in the air some three feet from the floor, hung a sphere of crystal, glowing with a soft radiance which seemed to wax and wane, to quiver almost to darkness and then to burn more clearly. It was like a dreamer's pulse, fluttering, pausing, leaping, in accord with his vision. And as I gazed at the sphere, I fancied I could see within it strange, elusive shapes, which changed and merged and faded from moment to moment, and yet grew always clearer and moresuggestive. I bent forward, straining my eyes to see them better, to fathom their meaning ...
Godfrey, turning to speak to me, saw my attitude and shook me roughly by the arm.
"Don't do that, Lester!" he growled in my ear. "Take your eyes off that crystal!"
I tried to move my eyes, but could not, until Godfrey pulled me around to face him. I stood blinking at him stupidly.
"I was nearly gone, myself, before I realised the danger," he said. "A sphere like that can hypnotise a man more quickly than anything else on earth, especially when his resistance is lessened, as it is by this heavy perfume."
"It was rather pleasant," I said. "I should like to try it some time."
"Well, you can't try it now. You've got something else to do. Besides, it has two victims already."
"Two victims?"
"Look carefully, but keep your eyes off the sphere," he said, and swung me around toward the room again.
The room was shrouded in impenetrable darkness, except for the faint and quivering radiance which the sphere emitted, and as I plunged my eyes into its depths in an effort to see what lay there, it seemed to me that I had never seen blackness so black. As I stared into it, with straining eyes, a vague form grew dimly visible beside the glowing sphere; and then I recoiled a little, for suddenly it took shape and I saw it was a man.
I had a queer fancy, as I stood there, that it was really a picture into which I was gazing—one of Rembrandt's—for, gradually, one detail after another emerged from the darkness, vague shadows took on shape and meaning, but farther back there was always more shadow, and farther back still more ...
The man was sitting cross-legged on a low divan, his hands crossed in front of him and hanging limply between his knees. His clothing I could see but vaguely, for it was merged into the darkness about him, but his hands stood out white against it. He was staring straight at the crystal, with unwavering and unwinking gaze, and sat as motionless as though carved in stone. The glow from the sphere picked out his profile with a line of light—I could see the high forehead, the strong, curved nose, the full lips shaded by a faint moustache, and the long chin, only partially concealed by a close-clipped beard. It was a wonderful and compelling face, especially as I then saw it, and I gazed at it for a long moment.
"It's the adept, I suppose," said Godfrey, no longer taking care to lower his voice.
It sounded unnaturally loud in the absolute stillness of the room, and I looked at the adept quickly, but he had not moved.
"Can't he hear you?" I asked.
"No—he couldn't hear a clap of thunder. That is, unless he's faking."
I looked again at the impassive figure.
"He's not faking," I said.
"I don't know," and Godfrey shook his head sceptically. "It looks like the real thing—but these fellows are mighty clever. Do you see the other victim? There's no fake about it!"
"I see no one else," I said, after a vain scrutiny.
"Look carefully on the other side of the sphere. Don't you see something there?"
My eyes were smarting under the strain, and for a moment longer I saw nothing; then a strange, grey shape detached itself from the blackness. It was an ugly and repulsive shape, slender below, but swelling hideously at the top, and as I stared at it, it seemed to me that it returned my stare with malignant eyes screened by a pair of white-rimmed glasses. Then, with a sensation of dizziness, I saw that the shape was swaying gently back and forth, in a sort of rhythm. And then, quite suddenly, I saw what it was, and a chill of horror quivered up my back.
It was a cobra.
To and fro it swung, to and fro, its staring eyes fixed upon the sphere, its spectacled hood hideously distended.
The very soul within me trembled as I gazed at those unwinking eyes. What did they see in the sphere? What was passing in that inscrutable brain? Could it, too, reconstruct the past, read the mysteries of the future ...
Some awful power, greater than my will, seemed stretching its tentacles from the darkness: I felt them dragging at me, certain, remorseless, growing stronger and stronger ...
With something very like a shriek of terror, I tore myself away, out of the entry, into the hall, to the stairs, and down them into the lighted room below.
And as I stood there, gasping for breath, Godfrey followed me, and I saw that his face, too, was livid.
Godfrey met my eyes with a little deprecating smile, put his torch in one pocket, took a handkerchief from another, and mopped his forehead.
"Rather nerve-racking, wasn't it, Lester?" he remarked, and then his gaze wandered to the couch, and he stepped toward it quickly.
I saw that a change had come in Miss Vaughan's condition. Her eyes were still closed, but her body no longer lay inert and lifeless, for from moment to moment it was shaken by a severe nervous tremor. Godfrey's face was very grave as he looked at her.
"Stop stroking her wrists, Swain," he said; "that does no good," and when Swain, without answering or seeming to hear, kept on stroking them, Godfrey drew the hands away, took Swain by the arm, and half-lifted him to his feet. "Listen to me," he said, more sternly, and shook him a little, for Swain's eyes were dull and vacant. "I want you to sit quietly in a chair for a while, till you get your senses back. Miss Vaughan is seriously ill and must not be disturbed in any way.I'm going to get a doctor and a nurse at once; they'll do what needs to be done. Until then, she must be left alone. Understand?"
Swain nodded vaguely, and permitted Godfrey to lead him to a chair near the outer door, where he sat down. As his hand fell across the arm of the chair, I could see that a little blood was still oozing from the wound on the wrist. Godfrey saw it, too, and picked up the hand and looked at it. Then he laid it gently down again and glanced at his watch. I followed his example, and saw that it was half-past one.
"Have you nerve enough to stay here half an hour by yourself, Lester?" he asked.
"By myself?" I echoed, and glanced at the dead man and at the quivering girl.
"I've got to run over to my place to get a few things and do some telephoning," he explained. "We must get a doctor up here at once; and then there's the police—I'll try to get Simmonds. Will you stay?"
"Yes," I said, "of course. But please get back as soon as you can."
"I will," he promised, and, after a last look around the room, stepped out upon the walk.
I went to the door and looked after him until the sound of his footsteps died away. Then, feeling very lonely, I turned back into the room.Those regular tremors were still shaking the girl's body in a way that seemed to me most alarming, but there was nothing I could do for her, and I finally pulled a chair to Swain's side. He, at least, offered a sort of companionship. He was sitting with his head hanging forward in a way that reminded me most unpleasantly of the huddled figure by the table, and did not seem to be aware of my presence. I tried to draw him into talk, but a slight nod from time to time was all I could get from him, and I finally gave it up. Mechanically, my hand sought my coat pocket and got out my pipe—yes, that was what I needed; and, sitting down in the open doorway, I filled it and lighted up.
My nerves grew calmer, presently, and I was able to think connectedly of the events of the night, but there were two things which, looked at from any angle, I could not understand. One was Swain's dazed and incoherent manner; the other was the absence of servants.
As to Swain, I believed him to be a well-poised fellow, not easily upset, and certainly not subject to attacks of nerves. What had happened to him, then, to reduce him to the pitiable condition in which he had come back to us over the wall, and in which he was still plunged? The discovery of the murder and of Miss Vaughan's senseless bodymight have accounted for it, but his incoherence had antedated that—unless, indeed, he knew of the murder before he left the grounds. That thought gave me a sudden shock, and I put it away from me, not daring to pursue it farther.
As to the house, its deserted condition seemed sinister and threatening. It was absurd to suppose that an establishment such as this could be carried on without servants, or with less than three or four. But where were they? And then I remembered that Godfrey and I had not completed our exploration of the house. We had stopped at the gruesome room where the adept and his serpent gazed unwinking into the crystal sphere. There was at least one suite on the same floor we had not looked into, and no doubt there were other rooms on the attic floor above. But that any one could have slept on undisturbed by those piercing screams and by our own comings and goings seemed unbelievable. Perhaps there were separate quarters in the grounds somewhere—
And then, without conscious will of my own, I felt my body stiffen and my fingers grip my pipe convulsively. A slow tremor seemed to start from the end of my spine, travel up it, and pass off across my scalp. There was someone in the room behind me; someone with gleaming eyes fixed upon me; and I sat there rigidly, straining myears, expecting I knew not what—a blow upon the head, a cord about the neck.
A rapid step came up the walk and Godfrey appeared suddenly out of the darkness.
"Well, Lester," he began; but I sprang to my feet and faced the room, for I could have sworn that I had heard behind me the rustle of a silken dress. But there was no one there except Swain and Miss Vaughan and the dead man—and none of them had moved.
"What is it?" Godfrey asked, stepping past me into the room.
"There was someone there, Godfrey," I said. "I'm sure of it—I felt someone—I felt his eyes on me—and then, as you spoke, I heard the rustle of a dress."
"Of a dress?"
"Or of a robe," and my thoughts were on the bearded man upstairs.
Godfrey glanced at me, crossed the room, and looked out into the hall. Then he turned back to me.
"Well, whoever it was," he said, and I could see that he thought my ears had deceived me, "he has made good his escape. There'll be a doctor and a nurse here in a few minutes, and I got Simmonds and told him to bring Goldberger along. He can't get here for an hour anyway. And I'vegot a change here for Swain," he added, with a gesture toward some garments he carried over one arm; "also a bracer to be administered to him," and he drew a flask from his pocket and handed it to me. "Maybe you need one, yourself," he added, smiling drily, "since you've taken to hearing rustling robes."
"I do," I said, "though not on that account," and I raised the flask to my lips and took a long swallow.
"Suppose you take Swain up to the bath-room," Godfrey suggested, "and help him to get cleaned up. I'll go down to the gate and wait for the doctor."
"The gate's probably locked."
"I thought of that," and he drew a small but heavy hammer from his pocket. "I'll smash the lock, if there's no other way. I'd like you to get Swain into shape before anyone arrives," he added. "He's not a prepossessing object as he is."
"No, he isn't," I agreed, looking at him, and I took the garments which Godfrey held out to me. Then I went over to Swain and put the flask into his uninjured hand. "Take a drink of that," I said.
He did not understand at first; then he put the flask to his lips and drank eagerly—so eagerly that I had to draw it away. He watched melongingly as I screwed on the cap and slipped it into my pocket; and there was more colour in his face and a brighter light in his eyes.
"Now, come along," I said, "and get that cut fixed up."
He rose obediently and followed me out into the hall. Godfrey had preceded us, found the light-switch after a brief search, and turned it on.
"There's a switch in the bath-room, too, no doubt," he said. "Bring him down again, as soon as you get him fixed up. You'll find some cotton and gauze in one of the pockets of the coat."
Swain followed me up the stair and into the bath-room. He seemed to understand what I intended doing, for he divested himself of coat and shirt and was soon washing arms and face vigorously. Then he dried himself, and stood patiently while I washed and bandaged the cut on the wrist. It was not a deep one, and had about stopped bleeding.
"Feel better?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, and without waiting for me to tell him, slipped into the clean shirt which Godfrey had brought, attached the collar and tied the tie, all this quite composedly and without hesitation or clumsiness. Yet I felt, in some indefinable way, that something was seriously wrong with him. His eyes were vacant and his face flabby, as thoughthe muscles were relaxed. It gave me the feeling that his intelligence was relaxed, too!
He picked up his own coat, but I stopped him.
"Don't put that on," I said, speaking to him as I would have spoken to a child. "The sleeve is blood-stained and there's a long tear down the side. Take this one," and I held out the light lounging-coat Godfrey had brought with him.
Swain laid down his own garment without a word and put on the other one. I rolled the soiled garments into a bundle, took them under my arm, turned out the lights, and led the way downstairs.
A murmur of voices from the library told me that someone had arrived, and when I reached the door, I saw that it was the doctor and the nurse. The former was just rising from a rapid examination of the quivering figure on the couch.
"We must get her to bed at once," he said, turning to Godfrey. "Her bedroom's upstairs, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Godfrey; "shall I show you the way?"
The doctor nodded and, lifting the girl carefully in his arms, followed Godfrey out into the hall. The nurse picked up a medicine-case from the floor and followed after.
I had expected Swain to rush forward to the couch, to make a scene, perhaps, and had kept myhand upon his arm; but to my astonishment he did not so much as glance in that direction. He stood patiently beside me, with his eyes on the floor, and when my restraining hand fell away, he walked slowly to the chair in which he had been sitting, and dropped into it, relaxing limply as with fatigue.
Godfrey was back in a moment.
"That doctor was the nearest one I could find," he said. "He seems to be all right. But if Miss Vaughan isn't better in the morning, I'll get a specialist out."
"Godfrey," I said, in a low tone, "there's something the matter with Swain," and I motioned to where he sat, flaccid and limp, apparently half-asleep. "He is suffering from shock, or something of that sort. It's something more, anyway, than over-wrought nerves. He seems to be only half-conscious."
"I noticed it," said Godfrey, with a little nod. "We'll have the doctor look at him when he comes down," and he sank wearily into a chair. "This has been a pretty strenuous night, Lester."
"Yes; and it isn't over yet. I wonder what the man with the snake is doing?"
"Still staring into the crystal, no doubt. Do you want to go and see?"
"No," I said decidedly, "I don't. Godfrey,"I added, "doesn't the absence of servants seem strange to you?"
"Very strange. But, I dare say, we'll find them around somewhere—though they seem to be sound sleepers! We didn't look through the whole house, you know. I'm not going to, either; I'm going to let the police do that. They ought to be here pretty soon. I told Simmonds to bring two or three men with him."
I glanced at the huddled body of the murdered man. With all the night's excitements and surprises, we had not even touched upon that mystery. Not a single gleam of light had been shed upon it, and yet it was the centre about which all these other strange occurrences revolved. Whose hand was it had thrown that cord about the throat and drawn it tight? What motive lay behind? Fearsome and compelling must the motive be to drive a man to such a crime! Would Simmonds be able to divine that motive, to build the case up bit by bit until the murderer was found? Would Godfrey?
I turned my head to look at him. He was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, apparently lost in thought, and for long minutes there was no movement in the room.
At last the doctor returned, looking more cheerful than when he had left the room. He hadgiven Miss Vaughan an opiate and she was sleeping calmly; the nervous trembling had subsided and he hoped that when she waked she would be much better. The danger was that brain fever might develop; she had evidently suffered a very severe shock.
"Yes," said Godfrey, "she discovered her father strangled in the chair yonder."
"I saw the body when I came in," the doctor remarked, imperturbably. "So it's her father, is it?"
"Yes."
"And strangled, you say?"
Godfrey answered with a gesture, and the doctor walked over to the body, glanced at the neck, then disengaged one of the tightly clenched hands from the chair-arm, raised it and let it fall. I could not but envy his admirable self-control.
"How long has he been dead?" Godfrey asked.
"Not more than two or three hours," the doctor answered. "The muscles are just beginning to stiffen. It looks like murder," he added, and touched the cord about the neck.
"Itismurder."
"You've notified the police?"
"They will be here soon."
I saw the doctor glance at Godfrey and then atme, plainly puzzled as to our footing in the house; but if there was a question in his mind, he kept it from his lips and turned back again to the huddled body.
"Any clue to the murderer?" he asked, at last.
"We have found none."
And then the doctor stooped suddenly and picked up something from the floor beside the chair.
"Perhaps this is a clue," he said, quietly, and held to the light an object which, as I sprang to my feet, I saw to be a blood-stained handkerchief.
He spread it out under our eyes, handling it gingerly, for it was still damp, and we saw it was a small handkerchief—a woman's handkerchief—of delicate texture. It was fairly soaked with blood, and yet in a peculiar manner, for two of the corners were much crumpled but quite unstained.
The doctor raised his eyes to Godfrey's.
"What do you make of it?" he asked.
"A clue, certainly," said Godfrey; "but scarcely to the murderer."
The doctor looked at it again for a moment, and then nodded. "I'd better put it back where I found it, I guess," he said, and dropped it beside the chair.
And then, suddenly, I remembered Swain. I turned to find him still drooping forward in his chair, apparently half-asleep.
"Doctor," I said, "there is someone else here who is suffering from shock," and I motioned toward the limp figure. "Or perhaps it's something worse than that."
The doctor stepped quickly to the chair and looked down at its occupant. Then he put his hand under Swain's chin, raised his head and gazed intently into his eyes. Swain returned the gaze, but plainly in only a half-conscious way.
"It looks like a case of concussion," said the doctor, after a moment. "The left pupil is enlarged," and he ran his hand rapidly over the right side of Swain's head. "I thought so," he added. "There's a considerable swelling. We must get him to bed." Then he noticed the bandaged wrist. "What's the matter here?" he asked, touching it with his finger.
"He cut himself on a piece of glass," Godfrey explained. "You'd better take him over to my place, where he can be quiet."
"I've got my car outside," said the doctor, and together he and I raised Swain from the chair and led him to it.
He went docilely and without objection, and ten minutes later, was safely in bed, already dozingoff under the influence of the opiate the doctor had given him. "He'll be all right in the morning," the latter assured me. "But he must have got quite a blow over the head."
"I don't know what happened to him," I answered. "You'll come back with me, won't you?"
"Yes; I may be useful," and he turned the car back the way we had come. "Besides," he added, frankly, "I'm curious to learn what happened in that house to-night."
He had certainly shown himself equal to emergencies, I reflected; and I liked his voice and his manner, which was cool and capable.
"My name is Lester," I said. "I'm a lawyer staying with Mr. Godfrey. We heard Miss Vaughan scream and ran over to the house, but we don't know any more than you do."
"My name is Hinman, and I'm just a country doctor," said my companion; "but if I can be of any help, I hope you'll call upon me. Hello!" he added, as we turned through the gate into the grounds of Elmhurst, and he threw on the brake sharply, for a uniformed figure had stepped out into the glare of our lamps and held up his hand.
The police had arrived.
We found a little group of men gathered about the chair in which sat the huddled body. Two of them I already knew. One was Detective-sergeant Simmonds, and the other Coroner Goldberger, both of whom I had met in previous cases. Simmonds was a stolid, unimaginative, but industrious and efficient officer, with whom Godfrey had long ago concluded an alliance offensive and defensive. In other words, Godfrey threw what glory he could to Simmonds, and Simmonds such stories as he could to Godfrey, and so the arrangement was to their mutual advantage.
Goldberger was a more astute man than the detective, in that he possessed a strain of Semitic imagination, a quick wit, and a fair degree of insight. He was in his glory in a case like this. This was shown now by his gleaming eyes and the trembling hand which pulled nervously at his short, black moustache. Goldberger's moustache was a good index to his mental state—the more ragged it grew, the more baffling he found the case in hand!
Both he and Simmonds glanced up at our entrance and nodded briefly. Then their eyes went back to that huddled figure.
There were three other men present whom I did not know, but I judged them to be the plain-clothes-men whom Simmonds had brought along at Godfrey's suggestion. They stood a little to one side until their superiors had completed the examination.
"I didn't stop to pick up my physician," Goldberger was saying. "But the cause of death is plain enough."
"Doctor Hinman here is a physician," I said, bringing him forward. "If he can be of any service...."
Goldberger glanced at him, and was plainly favorably impressed by Hinman's dark, eager face, and air of intelligence and self-control.
"I shall be very glad of Dr. Hinman's help," said Goldberger, shaking hands with him. "Have you examined the body, sir?"
"Only very casually," answered Hinman. "But it is evident that the cause of death was strangulation."
"How long has he been dead?"
Hinman lifted the stiff hand again and ran his fingers along the muscles of the arm.
"About four hours, I should say."
Goldberger glanced at his watch.
"That would put his death at a little before midnight. The murderer must have come in from the grounds, crept up behind his victim, thrown the cord about his neck and drawn it tight before his presence was suspected. The victim would hardly have remained seated in the chair if he had known his danger. After the cord was round his throat, he had no chance—he could not even cry out. There's one thing I don't understand, though," he added, after a moment. "Where did that blood come from?" and he pointed to the dark spots on the collar of the white robe.
Hinman looked up with a little exclamation.
"I forgot," he said. "Did you find the handkerchief? No, I see you didn't," and he pointed to where it lay on the floor. "I noticed it when I first looked at the body."
Without a word, Goldberger bent and picked up the blood-stained handkerchief. Then he and Simmonds examined it minutely. Finally the coroner looked at Godfrey, and his eyes were very bright.
"There can be only one inference," he said. "The dead man is not bleeding—the cord did not cut the flesh. The blood, then, must have come from the murderer. He must have been injured in some way—bleeding profusely. Look at this handkerchief—it is fairly soaked."
I am sure that, at that instant, the same thought was in Godfrey's mind which flashed through mine, for our eyes met, and there was a shadow in his which I knew my own reflected. Then I glanced at Hinman. He was looking at the handkerchief thoughtfully, his lips tightly closed. I could guess what he was thinking, but he said nothing.
Goldberger laid the handkerchief on the table, at last, and turned back to the body. He bent close above it, examining the blood spots, and when he stood erect again there was in his face a strange excitement.
"Lend me your glass, Simmonds," he said, and when Simmonds handed him a small pocket magnifying-glass, he unfolded it and bent above the stains again, scrutinising each in turn. At last he closed the glass with an emphatic little snap. "This case isn't going to be so difficult, after all," he said. "Those spots are finger-prints."
With an exclamation of astonishment, Simmonds took the glass and examined the stains; then he handed it to Godfrey, who finally passed it on to me. Looking through it, I saw that Goldberger was right. The stains had been madeby human fingers. Most of them were mere smudges, but here and there was one on which faint lines could be dimly traced.
"They seem to be pretty vague," I remarked, passing the glass on to Hinman.
"They're plenty clear enough for our purpose," said Goldberger; "besides they will come out much clearer in photographs. It's lucky this stuff is so smooth and closely-woven," he added, fingering a corner of the robe, "or we wouldn't have got even those. It's as hard and fine as silk."
"How do you suppose those marks came there, Mr. Goldberger?" Godfrey asked, and there was in his tone a polite scepticism which evidently annoyed the coroner.
"Why, there's only one way they could come there," Goldberger answered impatiently. "They were put there by the murderer's fingers as he drew the cord tight. Do you see anything improbable in that?"
"Only that it seems too good to be true," Godfrey answered, quietly, and Goldberger, after looking at him a moment, turned away with a shrug of the shoulders.
"See if you can get the cord loose, Simmonds," he said.
The cord was in the form of a running noose,which had been knotted to hold it in place after being drawn tight. Although it had not cut the flesh of the neck, it had sunk deeply into it, and Simmonds worked at the knot for some moments without result. I suspect his fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been; but it was evidently an intricate knot.
"That's a new one on me," he said, at last. "I can't get it loose."
Godfrey bent close above it and looked at it.
"Itisa peculiar knot," he agreed. "If you'll permit a suggestion, Mr. Goldberger, you'll cut the cord and leave the knot as it is. It may help us to find the man who made it."
"You're right," agreed Goldberger, promptly. "Cut the cord, Simmonds."
Simmonds got out his pocket-knife, opened it and slipped the blade under the cord, cut it, and pulled it out of the ridge of flesh. He looked at it a moment, and then handed it to Goldberger. The latter examined it carefully.
"It's stained with blood, too," he remarked, and passed it on to Godfrey.
"It looks like curtain-cord," Godfrey said, and made a little tour of the room. "Ah!" he added, after a moment, from the door opening into the grounds. "See here!"
He was holding up the end of the cord by whichthe curtains covering the upper part of the double doors were controlled.
"You were right, Mr. Coroner," he said, "in thinking that the murderer entered by this door, for he stopped here and cut off a piece of this cord before going on into the room."
"Then he must also have stopped to make it into a noose," remarked Goldberger. "If he did that, he was certainly a cool customer. It's a wonder his victim didn't hear the noise he made."
"Making a knot isn't a noisy operation," Godfrey pointed out; "besides, the back of the chair was toward the door. And then, of course, it's possible his victimdidhear him."
"But then he would have jumped from the chair," objected Simmonds.
"Not necessarily. Suppose you were sitting there, and heard a noise, and looked around and saw me standing here, you wouldn't jump from the chair, would you?"
"No; I'd have no reason to jump from you."
"Perhaps Vaughan thought he had no reason to jump from the manhesaw—if he saw anyone. I'm inclined to think, however, that he didn't suspect anyone else was in the room until he felt the cord about his throat."
"And, of course," said Goldberger, taking the cord again and looking at it, "it was while themurderer was making it into a noose with his blood-stained fingers that he stained it in that way. Don't you agree, Mr. Godfrey?"
"That is a possible explanation," Godfrey conceded.
"But why did he make this second knot?" inquired the coroner; "the knot which holds the noose tight and prevents it from slipping?"
"If he hadn't knotted it like that he would have had to stand there holding it until his victim was dead. As it was, he didn't have to wait."
I shivered a little at the thought of the scoundrel calmly tying the knot to secure his noose, and then leaving his victim to twitch his life out.
"It's no little trick to tie a knot like that," Godfrey added, thoughtfully. "I should like to study it."
"All right," agreed Goldberger; "you can have it whenever you want it," and he got a heavy manila envelope out of his pocket and placed the cord carefully inside. "Now we must get that robe off. We can't run any risk of having those finger-prints smeared."
It was a difficult job and a revolting one, for the body had stiffened into its huddled posture, but at last the robe was removed and the body itself lying at full length on its back on the couch. Seen thus, with the light full on it, the face washorrible, and Goldberger laid his handkerchief over the swollen and distorted features, while, at a sign from him, Simmonds pulled down the portière from the inner door and placed it over the body. Then the coroner picked up the robe and held it out at arms' length.
"What kind of a freak dress is this, anyway?" he asked.
"It's a robe," said Godfrey. "Mr. Vaughan was a mystic."
"A what?"
"A mystic—a believer in Hinduism or some other Oriental religion."
"Did he dress this way all the time?"
"I believe so. It is probably the dress of his order."
Goldberger rolled the robe up carefully, and said nothing more; but I could see from his expression that he had ceased to wonder why Vaughan had come to a strange and violent end. Surely anything might happen to a mystic! Then he placed the blood-stained handkerchief in another envelope, and finally put his hand in his pocket and brought out half a dozen cigars.
"Now," he said, "let's sit down and rest awhile. Simmonds tells me it was you who called him, Mr. Godfrey. How did you happen to discover the crime?"
The question was asked carelessly, but I could feel the alert mind behind it. I knew that Godfrey felt it, too, from the way in which he told the story, for he told it carefully, and yet with an air of keeping nothing back.
Of the mysterious light he said nothing, but, starting with my finding of the letter and summoning Swain to receive it, told of the arrangements for the rendezvous, dwelling upon it lightly, as a love-affair which could have no connection with the tragedy. He passed on to his own arrival from the city, to Swain's return from the rendezvous, and finally to the screams which had reached us, and to the discovery we had made when we burst into the house.
"I summoned Dr. Hinman immediately," he added, "for Miss Vaughan seemed to be in a serious condition; then I called Simmonds, and suggested that he stop for you, Mr. Coroner, for I knew that the case would interest you. Dr. Hinman arrived perhaps half an hour ahead of you, and had Miss Vaughan put to bed at once. And I guess you know the rest," he concluded.
We had all listened intently. I was pretty sure that Simmonds would make no inferences which Godfrey wished to avoid; but I feared the more penetrating mind of the coroner. His first question proved that I was right to do so.
"Where is this man Swain?" he asked.
"He was suffering from the shock," said Godfrey, "and Lester and Dr. Hinman took him over to my place and put him to bed. That's where they were when you got here."
"He seemed to be suffering from a slight concussion," Hinman explained. "There was a swelling on one side of his head, as though some one had struck him, and the pupils of his eyes were unsymmetrical. He had also a cut on the wrist," he added, after an instant's hesitation.
"Ah!" commented Goldberger, with a glance at Godfrey. "Had it been bleeding?"
"He cut himself when crossing the wall," Godfrey explained; "a mere scratch, but I believe itdidbleed a good deal."
"Ah!" said Goldberger again; and then he turned to the doctor. "Did I understand you to say that he went to sleep?"
"He certainly did. I gave him a good strong opiate to make sure of it."
"Do you think he'll sleep till morning?"
"He'll sleep nine or ten hours, at least."
"Thenthat'sall right," said Goldberger, and settled back in his chair again. "But didn't anybody live in this house except that old man and his daughter? Aren't there any servants?"
"There must be some somewhere about," answered Godfrey, to whom the question was addressed; "but Lester and I looked through the lower floor and part of the upper one and didn't find any. There's a bell there by the door, but nobody answered when I rang. We didn't have time to go all over the house. Wedidfind one thing, though," he added, as if by an afterthought.
"What was that?"
"There's an adept in one of the rooms upstairs."
Goldberger sat up and stared at him.
"An adept?" he repeated. "What's that?"
"An expert in mysticism. I judge that Vaughan was his pupil."
"Do you mean he's a Hindu?" asked the coroner, as though that would explain everything.
But Godfrey was having his revenge.
"I don't know whether he's a Hindu or not," he said, airily. "I didn't get a very good look at him."
"What was he doing?" Goldberger demanded.
"He was just sitting there."
Again Goldberger stared at him, this time suspiciously.
"But, good heavens, man!" he cried. "That was three or four hours ago! You don't suppose he's sitting there yet!"
"Yes," said Godfrey drily, "I think he is."
Goldberger's face flushed, and he sprang to his feet impatiently.
"Show me the room," he commanded.
"Glad to," said Godfrey laconically, and led the way out into the hall.
The whole crowd tailed along after him. As I rose to follow, I saw that the outside world was turning grey with the approaching dawn.
The nurse, hearing our footsteps on the stairs, looked out in alarm, and held up a warning finger. Godfrey paused for a word with her.
"How is she?" he asked.
"Sleeping quietly," said the nurse; "but please don't make any more noise than you can help."
"We won't," Godfrey promised, and crossed the hall to the door leading into the little entry. Then he paused and looked around at Goldberger. "Better go slow here," he cautioned. "The adept has a pet cobra."
"A snake?"
"The deadliest snake in the world."
Goldberger drew back a little, as did all the others.
"I don't think it will bite us, though," added Godfrey, cheerfully, "if we don't crowd it. It's sitting there, too," and he opened the outer door, passed through, and held back the curtain at the farther end.
I was just behind Goldberger and Simmonds, and I heard their gasp of amazement, as they saw what lay beyond.
The scene had not changed in the slightest detail. The crystal sphere still softly glowed, with intangible shadows flitting across its surface; the adept still sat cross-legged staring into its depths; opposite him, the cobra, its hood distended, swayed slowly to and fro.
But as we stood there staring, a single delicate ray of sunlight coming through a pin-hole in the curtained window, struck the sphere and seemed to extinguish it. The glow within it flickered and fluttered and finally vanished, and it hung there dull and grey. An instant later, the motionless figure raised its arms high in air, with a motion somehow familiar; then it got slowly to its feet, crossed to the window, drew back the curtain and flung wide the shutter.
The sun was just peeping over the trees to the east, and for a second its light blinded me. Then I saw the adept bowing low before it, his arms still extended. Once, twice, thrice he bowed, as before a deity, while we stood there staring. Then he turned slowly toward us.
"Enter, friends," he said calmly. "The peace of the Holy One be on you, and his love within your hearts!"