tapestries
relieved here and there by priceless curios, and lit, although it was
still daylight, by a jet of rose-colored light concentrated, not on the
rows and rows of books around the lower portion of the room, or on the
one great picture which at another time might have drawn the eye and
held the attention, but on the upturned face of a man lying on a
bearskin rug with a dagger in his heart and on his breast a cross whose
golden lines, sharply outlined against his long, dark, swathing garment,
gave him the appearance of a saint prepared in some holy place for
burial, save that the dagger spoke of violent death, and his face of an
anguish for which Mr. Gryce, notwithstanding his lifelong experience,
found no name, so little did it answer to a sensation of fear, pain, or
surprise, or any of the emotions usually visible on the countenances of
such as have fallen under the unexpected stroke of an assassin.

CHAPTER II.

MYSTERIES.

A moment of indecision, of awe even, elapsed before Mr. Gryce recovered
himself. The dim light, the awesome silence, the unexpected surroundings
recalling a romantic age, the motionless figure of him who so lately had
been the master of the house, lying outstretched as for the tomb, with
the sacred symbol on his breast offering such violent contradiction to
the earthly passion which had driven the dagger home, were enough to
move even the tried spirit of this old officer of the law and confuse a
mind which, in the years of his long connection with the force, had had
many serious problems to work upon, but never one just like this.

It was only for a moment, though. Before the man behind him had given
utterance to his own bewilderment and surprise, Mr. Gryce had passed in
and taken his stand by the prostrate figure.

That it was that of a man who had long since ceased to breathe he could
not for a moment doubt; yet his first act was to make sure of the fact
by laying his hand on the pulse and examining the eyes, whose expression
of reproach was such that he had to call up all his professional
sangfroid to meet them.

He found the body still warm, but dead beyond all question, and, once
convinced of this, he forbore to draw the dagger from the wound, though
he did not fail to give it the most careful attention before turning his
eyes elsewhere. It was no ordinary weapon. It was a curio from some
oriental shop. This in itself seemed to point to suicide, but the
direction in which