se,
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 portiere 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