Chapter 9 FIRST STEPS

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 made by 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.

"It is a 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 which the 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 victim did hear 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 man he saw-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 the murderer 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 was horrible, 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 it did bleed 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."

"Then that's all 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. We did find 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!"

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