oh Sin....

Outside it had gone quite dark.

Those two busy officials of colonial administration whose duty it was to
gather up and to sort out the threads of local crime in that far Eastern
port wasted no time and few words about their work. They had been on
many cases together. Moreover, this particular case offered a bare
simplicity in its few apparent details. Also, since it concerned the
death of a white, it called for urgent action, and they went at it with
precision and dispatch while the police guard held the entrance against
a wondering throng.

"How long has he been dead?" asked the assistant inspector.

"Some ten minutes, I should say," returned the medical examiner. "He's
still warm."

"Instantaneous?"

"As nearly as possible. His heart's been split in half, you might say,
with this _dah_." The doctor indicated a short iron dagger buried to
its iron handle in the victim's left breast. "One jab, and no bungling
about it."

"Done by a native," remarked the inspector, bending over.

"Evidently. But what kind of a Buddhist was he, giving himself to the
frozen Buddhist hell by taking a life?"

"Not much of a Buddhist. That's a hill weapon. They're hardly what you'd
call orthodox in the hills."

"Quite true," agreed the doctor. "Buddhism is a modern novelty to the
hills. What's a matter of three thousand years? They've got a system
rather older."

"And we've got a story here, if we could only read it, that's older than
any system."

"But still--to kill a man in a shrine, eh?"

"Yes. He must have had a pretty good reason."

Something in the other's tone made the doctor look up.

"You knew this chap?"

"Slightly," said the inspector. "Name of Cloots. He's been cruising
about after jade and ruby mines one time and another, living among the
people. Kind of a prospecting tramp and adventurer--you know the type.
Rather an obnoxious beast, if he's the one I've heard about."

* * * * *

The doctor sought no further comments on Cloots--that was quite
sufficient and might serve for an epitaph. He preferred to jot down
certain necessary official entries in his little book, and as the light
was bad he moved away toward the altar. Meanwhile the inspector remained
by the body, outsprawled there in a crimson pool, until an exclamation
brought him spinning around to find his colleague standing under the
glimmer of the lone taper and looking singularly pale, he thought.

But