The Black Mask — page 41: what you’re looking at

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

“I knew of no other place to seek the identity of someone who might desire Miss Grenville’s death: But I reasoned that in some column of stage and Broad- way gossip I might find something to put me on the track. [I did. It was only a tiny paragraph, but it gave the reason why someone—someone I knew of— might kill the dancing woman. It merely related the return to his own country of a young foreigner whom she had ruined —in honor as well as in pocketbook. This young foreigner came of a family that holds its honor very dear. And by a strange coincidence, the young man’s brother had an apartment on the same floor with the woman who had dragged in the mud the honor of his family.” “Say, you don’t mean the dago count, Angellotti?”’ Delaney shouted. Song Kee held up his hand. “Patience,” he said; “we'll come to that later.” “Tn China,” he resumed, “we have a saying to the effect that truth grows out of thought and concentration. I applied it. In my rooms IJ gave myself over to meditation, I had found someone who might have desired the death of the dancing woman. If I could discover a way in which he could have killed her, I might be making progress. And after a little, I did discover a way. From out of the realm of my subconscious mind there flashed an idea. What if the Gren- ville woman had not been stabbed at all —but shot? were not a dagger—but an arrow? Then I’ remembered that the people from whom the foreigner was sprung had _ been the world’s greatest archers since the tenth century. Also I remembered the freshly cut notches on the handle of the knife—notches. which might be used to catch in the string of a bow.” He stopped and glanced around the room. The impression he had made on his hearers was one that would have satisfied an actor most avid for attention. What if the instrument — = The Rinbelevahtc 39 Oglethorpe and the Assistant District Attorney were listening intently. Syl via Granger and her lover, whose hand she still held, were leaning forward, their eyes glowing with excitement. Even Delaney, the skeptic, had dropped his pose of indifference. Song Kee continued. “My next step was to visit the scene of the crime to discover—well, if the thing could have been done as I had imagined. And incidentally I paid my respects to Mr. Sito Okawa, a most courteous gentleman. That visit was productive of several things. One was the knowledge of exactly where the dancing woman had been when she was killed. And standing where she had been, I saw the place from which an arrow could have been shot. Mr. Delaney had given me the approximate angle at which the knife had been driven into the body and this angle correspond- ed to that which would have obtained had the woman been killed by an arrow shot through the open transom of a room twenty-five feet down the hall. “T left Mr. Okawa and questioned the clerk of the hotel. He told me that on the night of the murder the room in question had been unoccupied. The room opposite was the bedroom of Count Angellotti.” “Then it was the dago you suspect- ed?” Delaney again broke out. Song Kee smiled softly upon the now thoroughly excited detective. He seemed about to answer him. Then he changed his mind and said, “Will you pass me my cane, Mr, Delaney?” “Mr. Grover,” he said when Delaney had handed him the cane, “‘have you ever seen this cane before?” He held out the bamboo stick, Grover started in surprise. The seem- ing irrelevance of the question dazed him for an instant. Then he looked closely at the cane. “Why, yes, I think so,” he said hesi-