the face was weird and horrible. The eye was closed,distorted, and screwed up by pain, and both mouth and ear seemedshrivelled out of shape.
"Who's responsible for this, I wonder?" growled Kirk to himself. "Whydid she wish to return here in secret--to the house wherein she knew herfather was lying dead? There was some strong motive--just as there is amotive for her death as well as her father's." Then, looking up to me,he added, "You know, Mr. Holford, this poor young lady was her father'sassistant and confidante. She was in the habit of helping him in hisexperiments, and making notes at his dictation of certain results."
I knelt at the other side of the inert, prostrate form, and took theungloved hands in mine. The stiffening fingers were cold as ice.
"It's brutal--blackguardly!" cried Kirk in a frenzy of anger. "Whoeverhas thus sacrificed the girl's beauty deserves a dog's death. Themotive in both cases must be vengeance. But for what?"
Antonio and his brother were active in getting brandy, sal volatile,ammonia, hot water, and other restoratives; but, though Kirk workedunceasingly for half an hour in a manner which showed him to be nonovice, all was to no purpose.
There was no sign of life whatever. Indeed, the colour of thedisfigured portion of the fair countenance seemed to be slowly changingfrom marble-white to purple.
Kirk watched it, held his breath, and, staying his hand, shook his head.
"Why don't you call a doctor?" I again urged. "Something may be done,after all. She may not be dead!"
"I can do all that a doctor can do," was his calm, rather dignifiedreply, and I saw by the dark shadow upon his brow that he was annoyed atmy suggestion.
So I straightened myself again and watched.
At last my eccentric companion came to the conclusion that no more couldbe done for the unfortunate girl, and we all four lifted her from thecarpet on to the large leather sofa set near the window.
Then Kirk led the way up the broad, thickly-carpeted staircase to thefloor above. Entering an open door leading from the square landing, hetouched an electric switch, revealing a small elegantly-furnished room,a boudoir, upholstered in dark red silk. The walls were enamelled deadwhite, relieved by a beading of gold, and set in the panels were twofine paintings of the modern Italian school.
The red room was a veritable nest of luxury, with low easy chairs, acosy corner near the fire, and a small reading table, whereon stood aselection of the latest novels from the library. In the cosy corner Inoticed that the cushions were crushed, just as they had been left bythe unfortunate girl as she had been aroused from her sleep by theentrance of the maid at early morning.
One side of the room was occupied by a big bay window of stained glass,that probably faced a blank wall, while about four feet to the right ofthe cosy corner was a closed white-enamelled door--the door which gaveentrance to the passage leading to the laboratory. The carpet was apale grey, with a wreath of small roses running round the border, andbefore the door lay the white goatskin mat. My companion pointed to it,and I saw there the tell-tale stain of blood. The fire had been leftjust as it had died out on the morning of the tragedy.
"You see," Kirk said, advancing to the closed door which led to thelaboratory, "there is here a patent lock--an expensive make, which hasbut one key. This door I found still locked!"
Opening it, we passed into a short passage about twelve feet long,closed by a similar door. This also he reopened, and I found myself ina large long apartment, very lofty, and well lit by a long high windowalong the side towards the street and at the end, while a skylightoccupied part of the roof.
Upon rows of shelves were many bottles of chemicals, retorts, anddelicate experimental apparatus, while on the right was a small furnace.There were also three zinc-covered tables with the miscellaneousaccumulation of objects which the owner of the place had been using. Isaw a blocked-up door on the right, which my companion explained letinto the conservatory over the portico.
"Look!" whispered my friend in a low voice. "This way." And heswitched on the lights at the further end of the great high apartment.
I stepped forward at his side, until I distinguished, huddled up in thefurther corner, a human figure in dark grey trousers and blackfrock-coat. It seemed as though he had been propped in the corner, andhis grey head had fallen sideways before death.
I went further forward, holding my breath.
The victim was apparently nearly sixty, with hair and moustache turningwhite, rather stoutly built, and broad-shouldered. His position wasdistorted and unnatural, as though he had twisted himself in the finalagonies of death. The thin waxen hands were clenched tightly, and thelinen collar was burst from the neck, while the Professor's dark bluefancy vest bore a stain where the assassin's knife had struck himunerringly in the heart.
Of his features I, a stranger, could distinguish but little, so swollen,livid, and scarred were they that I was instantly horrified by theirsight. The disfigurement had been so terrible that there remainedhardly any semblance to a human face.
"Well," exclaimed Kirk at last, "you have seen it! Now what is youropinion?"
We were standing alone in the great laboratory, for Antonio and hisbrother had remained downstairs at my companion's suggestion.
I looked round that great silent workshop of one of the mostdistinguished chemists of the age, and then I gazed upon the mortalremains of the man upon whom so many honours had been showered. Warped,drawn, crouching, with one arm uplifted almost as though to ward off ablow, the body remained a weird and ghastly object.
"Has it been moved?" I inquired when I recovered speech.
"No; it is just as we found it--just as the unknown assassin left it,"he said. "The disfigurement, as far as I can judge, has been caused bysome chemical agency--some acid or other substance placed upon the face,with fiendish cruelty, immediately before death."
I bent closer to the lifeless face in order to examine it, andafterwards agreed with him. It was undoubtedly a murder prompted by afierce and bitter vengeance.
"The work of a madman, it may be," I suggested.
But Kershaw Kirk shook his head, saying: "Not of a madman, but of a veryclever murderer who has left not a trace of his identity."
"Do you think that the Professor was struck down at the spot where henow is?" I asked, for my friend seemed to be something of an expert inthe habits of the criminal classes.
"I think not. Yet, as you see, the place is in no way disordered.There is no sign whatever of a struggle."
I looked around, and as far as I could discern everything was as itshould be. Upon the nearest table in the centre was a very delicateglass apparatus in which some experiments had recently been made, forcertain yellowish liquids were still within. Had this table beenviolently jarred, the thin glass tubes would have been disarranged andbroken, a fact which showed conclusively that the fatal blow had beenstruck with great suddenness and in silence.
It had not occurred to Kirk to examine the dead man's pockets before,and now, kneeling at his side, he was in the act of doing so.
The various objects he took out, first examined, and afterwards handedthem to me. There were several letters, none of any great importance,some chemical memoranda scribbled in pencil upon a piece of blank paper,a gold presentation watch and chain, fifteen pounds odd in money, and afew minor trifles, none of which threw any light upon the mysterioustragedy.
My companion made another careful examination of the body. Then, risingto his feet, he walked slowly around the laboratory, in further search,it seemed to me, of anything that the assassin might have left behind.But by his countenance I saw that this eccentric man who dealt insecrets, as he had admitted to me, was much puzzled and perplexed. Theenigma was complete.
So complicated and extraordinary were the whole circumstances that anyattempt to unravel them only led one at once into an absolute_cul-de-sac_.
To whom had the dead man signalled in the Morse code by raising andlowering the blind?
Someone, friend or enemy, had be
en waiting outside near Clarence Gate inRegent's Park in the expectation of a message.
He received it from the Professor's own hands, those hands which beforethe dawn were cramped in the stiffness of death.
CHAPTER FOUR.
A SILENT MESSAGE.
For a full hour we remained there in the presence of the dead.
Before that huddled figure I stood a dozen times trying to form somefeasible theory as to what had actually occurred within that room.
The problem, however, was quite inexplicable. Who had killed ProfessorGreer?
There, upon the end of the unfortunate man's watch-chain, were the twokeys which he always carried, keys which held the secrets of hisexperiments away from the prying eyes of persons who were undesirable.Many of his discoveries had been worth to him thousands of pounds, andto public companies which exploited and worked them hundreds
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