are crushed in--see, this gash, Professor, would be
enough to cause death without any of the other wounds."

Betty Young could not take her eyes from the ghastly sight. She steeled
herself to bear it, and prayed for strength that she should not faint
and cause her father trouble. She could see the two men examining a
large blistered area under the corpse's armpit, in the center of which
was a sharp vertical slit which had without doubt punctured the artery
near the surface of the axilla. Perhaps it had pierced even to the
heart.

"Bloodless," exclaimed Marable, noticing the same thing as her father
had spoken of. "It is as if the blood had been pumped out of his body!"

"Yes, I think it has drained out."

"There is not much of a pool here where he lies, though," said Marable,
in a low voice. "See, there are only splotches about, from various cuts
he received."

"Maybe he was dragged here from another room," said Young. "When the
others come, we will soon know if anything is missing. It seems that men
desperate enough to commit such a murder would not leave without trying
to get what they came after. Unless, of course, the killing of Rooney
frightened them away before they could get their booty."

* * * * *

Smythe approached the group, with a physician in tow. The latter
confirmed the facts which Marable and Young had found: that Rooney had
been killed by the deep gash near the heart and that most of the blood
was drained from the body.

"They seem like the slashes from an extremely sharp and large razor,"
said the medical man.

Others were coming in to look at Rooney, and the museum was buzzing with
activity as various curators, alarmed about the safety of their valuable
collections, feverishly examined their charges.

"He punched his clock in here at two A.M.," said Smythe. "I seen that.
It's the last time he'll ever do his duty, poor feller."

"Curious odor," said the doctor, sniffing. "It smells like musk, but is
fetid. I suppose it's some chemical you use."

"I noticed that, too," said Professor Young. "I don't recognize it,
myself."

Marable, who had been looking at the floor between the great block of
amber and the body, uttered an exclamation which caused the two men to
look up.

"There are wavy lines leading around back of the block," said Marable,
in answer to their questions.

The young man disappeared behind the block, and then he called to them
excitedly to