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Updated: June 20, 2025
Lester, Commissioner Grady," said Goldberger, and I realised that the chief of the detective bureau had come up from headquarters to take personal charge of the case. "Mr. Lester is Mr. Vantine's attorney," the coroner added, in explanation. "Glad to know you, Mr. Lester," said Grady, shortly. "And now, I guess, we're ready to begin," went on the coroner. "Not quite," said Grady, grimly.
"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.
"It will, at least, be a great help to us," said Goldberger gently, and I saw how deeply the girl's delicate beauty appealed to him. It was a beauty which no pallor could disguise, and Goldberger's temperament was an impressionable one. "I shall be glad to tell you all I know," said Miss Vaughan, "but I fear it will not help you much."
Goldberger looked at it, then handed it to Sylvester, who fairly seized it, carried it to the door, and examined it with gleaming eyes. Then, without a word, he took an ink-pad from his pocket, slipped the glove upon his right hand, inked the tips of the fingers and pressed them carefully upon a sheet of paper.
After a few drinks Goldberger began, with some hesitation, to narrate how he had had a quarrel over his best girl with a professional "cardsharp," who had hit him in the jaw. The fellow was a stranger in Chicago, and if he was found some night with his head cracked there would be no one to care very much.
We'll learn the cause when we identify him jealousy maybe, or maybe just hard luck he doesn't look affluent." "I'll cable to Paris," said Simmonds. "If he belongs there, we'll soon find out who he is." "You'd better call an ambulance and have him taken to the morgue," went on Goldberger. "Somebody may identify him there.
So we all stood silent, staring as though fascinated at the hand which Simmonds held up to us; at those tiny wounds, encircled by discoloured flesh and with a sinister dash of clotted blood running away from them. Then Goldberger, taking a deep breath, voiced the thought which had sprung into my own brain. "Why, it looks like a snake-bite!" he said, his voice sharp with astonishment.
"So," said Godfrey slowly, "it couldn't have been dropped there by Swain when he stooped to pick her up." "No; besides, we know perfectly well that it wasn't about his wrist when he came back over the wall. Goldberger knows it, too, and we'll be asked about it, next time." "It might have been pushed up his sleeve we weren't absolutely certain. But this new evidence settles it."
He was plainly at a loss how to proceed. "Was your attendant with you?" he asked, at last. "He was in his closet." "At his devotions too, perhaps?" "The White Night of Siva is also the Black Night of Kali," said the yogi, gravely, as one rebuking an unworthy levity. "What do you mean by that?" Goldberger demanded.
"It's a blamed sight easier to find a natural and simple explanation," retorted Goldberger hotly, "than it is to find an unnatural and far-fetched one such as how one man could kill another by scratching him on the hand. I suppose you think this fellow was murdered? That's what you said a minute ago."
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