The Argosy, August 1905 — page 172: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

162 THE ARGOSY. “Want to see the body, eh?” he grunted. “All right, PU take you around there, professor. But mind you, I don’t want any interfering in our work or trying to teach us our business. There’s no doubt about the thing being a suicide—not a thousandth part of a doubt.” Accompanied by Morton, the profes- sor and Hilton climbed the stairs of the bachelor apartment where old Stanton had lived, and entered the death cham- ber. As Hilton had said, the police had allowed the body to remain exactly as it had been discovered, pending the ar- rival of the coroner. With hats in hand, each of them stood looking silently at the ghastly figure of the dead mam for a full minute. The police official stocd by im stolid indifference; the ether two were some- what overcome by the terrible sight. Professor Starling, however, despite his emotion, did not fail to take a rapid inventory of the room with his eyes. “You see, professor,” said the official almost sarcastically, “everything is perfectly regular and there is no doubt of suicide. Here is the gun as we found it, elutehed tightly in his hand, with his finger stiffened on the trigger. Here is the poor gentleman’s will on the table, evidently placed there by him just before he did the deed, so that there would be no mistake as to where the property was to go. Everything regu- lar, eh? ” ~ There are one or two little things you perhaps may not have noticed, Chief Morton,” replied the professor coldly. “I will call them to your atten- tion because I myself cannot find time to come here and work up this case and must leave it to you. “ You will notice, in the first place, in the grate here the charred ashes of what was once evidently a sheet of paper. On the table is half of a cigar with the label on. Also those two chairs there at the table are drawn up as if two persons had put them im that position to enjoy a chat. _ “Then there is a kid glove on the _ floor here, which I take the liberty of and which has a button bear- 7 > t,. a i Ps a Oe MS also, the telephone receiver over there is dangling from the hook on the end of the wire, which isn’t the proper attitude for a well-regulated telephone receiver to assume. Perhaps you have not no» ticed some of these little things.” “Tf I have or if I haven’t, what is the difference, Mr. Sherlock Holmes? ” said Morton sarcastically. ‘“‘ I can’t see that they mean anything, any of them.” * And yet how easily they might mean something,” said the professor, with a sareastic smile almost equal to that of the policeman. ‘ How-easy they might mean, for instance, that this poor old man was murdered instead of a suicide.” “Murdered! You are crazy, profes- sor, if you will excuse me for saying so. Show me what these things have got to do with a murder theory.” “ Wasily. That is what I intend to do, chief. Now, in the first place, these chairs, placed as they are, indicate that the dead man had a visitor shortly before he died, perhaps only a few min- utes before he died. * The cigar would lead us to the latter belief. You see itis half smoked. Who smoked it and left it there? Not the dead man, for I have learned from this young man here, who knew him well, that the deceased never smoked and in fact had an aversion for tobacco. Then how came that cigar in his room? Am L getting interesting, chief? ~ * Pooh!” seoffed the police official a little uneasily. “ You attach too much importance to trifles, professor; that’s the trouble with all theorists. But go on and have your say.” “This kid glove picked up off the floor and with a Paris trade-mark on the button. To whom does that belong? “To the dead man, you are abont to say; for there is the other glove on the sideboard there with his hat and cane. Well, you will be wrong there, for these gloves, as you will see if you look again, are not mates—they are both for the left hand,and probably the buttons show them to be two different makes. Yes, look here; you see I am right—this one is a Paris make and this one was made in New York, aceording to the tre mark on the button. Bh comicbooks.com —