“We hurried over to him. He was still alive, but could not speak. I turned him over, tried to rouse him and make him comfortable. It was only then that I saw that he was really conscious. But it seemed as if his tongue and most of his muscles were paralyzed. Somehow he managed to convey to us the idea that it was his heart that troubled him most.
“Really, at first I thought it was a case of suicide. But there was no sign of a weapon about and not a trace of poison—no glass, no packet. There was no wound on him, either—except a few slight cuts and scratches on his face and hands. But none of them looked to be serious. And yet, before we could get the house physician up to him he was dead.”
“And with not a word?” queried Kennedy.
“That’s the strangest part of it. No; not a word spoken. But as he lay there, even in spite of his paralyzed muscles, he was just able to motion with his hands. I thought he wanted to write, and gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. He clutched at them, but here is all he was able to do.”
Grady drew from his pocket a piece of paper and handed it to us. On it were printed in trembling, irregular characters, “G A D,” the “D” scarcely finished and trailing off into nothing.
What did it all mean? How had Shirley met his death, and why?
“Tell me something about him,” said Kennedy, studying the paper with a frown. Grady shrugged his shoulders.
“An Englishman—that’s about all I know. Looked like one of the younger sons who so frequently go out to seek their fortunes in the colonies. By his appearance, I should say he had been in the Far East—India, no doubt. And I imagine he had made good. He seemed to have plenty of money. That’s all I know about him.”
“Is anything missing from his room?” I asked. “Could it have been a robbery?”
“I searched the room hastily,” replied Grady. “Apparently not a thing had been touched. I don’t think it was robbery.”
By this time we had made our way through the lobby and were in the elevator.
“I’ve kept the room just as it was,” went on Grady to Kennedy, lowering his voice. “I’ve even delayed a bit in notifying the police, so that you could get here first.”
A moment later we entered the rooms, a fairly expensive suite, consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bath. Everything was in a condition to indicate that Shirley had just come in when the shot, if shot it had been, was fired.
There, on the floor, lay his body, still in the same attitude in which he had died and almost as Grady had found him gasping. Grady’s description of the horrible look on his face was, if anything, an understatement.
As I stood with my eyes riveted on the horror-stricken face on the floor, Kennedy had been quietly going over the furniture and carpet about the body.
“Look!” he exclaimed at last, scarcely turning to us. On the chair, the writing-table, and even on the walls were little pitted marks and scratches. He bent down over the carpet. There, reflecting the electric light, scattered all about, were little fine pieces of something that glittered.
“You have a vacuum cleaner, I suppose?” inquired Craig, rising quickly.
“Certainly—a plant in the cellar.”
“No; I mean one that is portable.”
“Yes; we have that, too,” answered Grady, hurrying to the room telephone to have the cleaner sent up.
Kennedy now began to look through Shirley’s baggage. There was, however, nothing to indicate that it had been rifled.
I noted, among other things, a photograph of a woman in Oriental dress, dusky, languorous, of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence. On it something was written in native characters.
Just then a boy wheeled the cleaner down the hall, and Kennedy quickly shoved the photograph into his pocket.
First, Kennedy removed the dust that was already in the machine. Then he ran the cleaner carefully over the carpet, the upholstery, everything about that corner of the room where the body lay. When he had finished he emptied out the dust into a paper and placed it in his pocket. He was just finishing when there came a knock at the door, and it was opened.
“Mr. Grady?” said a young man, entering hurriedly.
“Oh, hello, Glenn! One of the night clerks in the office, Kennedy,” introduced the house detective.
“I’ve just heard of the—murder,” Glenn began. “I was in the dining-room, being relieved for my little midnight luncheon as usual, when I heard of it, and I thought that perhaps you might want to know something that happened just before I went off duty.”
“Yes; anything,” broke in Kennedy.
“It was early in the evening,” returned the clerk, slowly, “when a messenger left a little package for Captain Shirley—said that Captain Shirley had had it sent himself and asked that it be placed in his room. It was a little affair in a plain, paper-wrapped parcel. I sent one of the boys up with it and a key, and told him to put the package on the writing-desk tip here.”
Kennedy looked at me. That, then, was the way something, whatever it might be, was introduced into the room.
“When the captain came in,” resumed the night clerk, “I saw there was a letter for him in the mailbox and handed it to him. He stood before the office desk while he opened it. I thought he looked queer. The contents seemed to alarm him.”
“What was in it?” asked Kennedy. “Could you see?”
“I got one glimpse. It seemed to be nothing but a little scarlet bead with a black spot on it. In his surprise, he dropped a piece of paper from the envelope in which the bead had been wrapped up. I thought it was strange, and, as he hurried over to the elevator, I picked it up. Here it is.”
The clerk handed over a crumpled piece of notepaper. On it was scrawled the word “Gadhr,” and underneath, “Beware!” I spelled out the first strange word. It had an ominous sound—“Gadhr.” Suddenly there flashed through my mind the letters Shirley had tried to print but had not finished, “G A D.”
Kennedy looked at the paper a moment.
“Gadhr!” he exclaimed, in a low, tense tone. “Revolt—the native word for unrest in India, the revolution!”
We stared at each other blankly. All of us had been reading lately in the despatches about the troubles there, hidden under the ban of the censorship. I knew that the Hindu propaganda in America was as yet in its infancy, although several plots and conspiracies had been hatched here.
“Is there any one in the hotel whom you might suspect?” asked Kennedy.
Grady cleared his throat and looked at the night clerk significantly.
“Well,” he answered, thoughtfully, “across the hall there is a new guest who came today—or, rather, yesterday—a Mrs. Anthony. We don’t know anything about her, except that she looks like a foreigner. She did not come directly from abroad, but must have been living in New York for some time. They tell me she asked for a room on this floor, at this end of the hall.”
“H’m!” considered Kennedy. “I’d like to see her—without being seen.”
“I think I can arrange that,” acquiesced Grady. “You and Jameson stay