“Yes; I may be useful,” and he turned the car back the way we had come.  “Besides,” he added, frankly, “I’m curious to learn what happened in that house to-night.”

He had certainly shown himself equal to emergencies, I reflected; and I liked his voice and his manner, which was cool and capable.

“My name is Lester,” I said.  “I’m a lawyer staying with Mr. Godfrey.  We heard Miss Vaughan scream and ran over to the house, but we don’t know any more than you do.”

“My name is Hinman, and I’m just a country doctor,” said my companion; “but if I can be of any help, I hope you’ll call upon me.  Hello!” he added, as we turned through the gate into the grounds of Elmhurst, and he threw on the brake sharply, for a uniformed figure had stepped out into the glare of our lamps and held up his hand.

The police had arrived.

CHAPTER IX

FIRST STEPS

We found a little group of men gathered about the chair in which sat the huddled body.  Two of them I already knew.  One was Detective-sergeant Simmonds, and the other Coroner Goldberger, both of whom I had met in previous cases.  Simmonds was a stolid, unimaginative, but industrious and efficient officer, with whom Godfrey had long ago concluded an alliance offensive and defensive.  In other words, Godfrey threw what glory he could to Simmonds, and Simmonds such stories as he could to Godfrey, and so the arrangement was to their mutual advantage.

Goldberger was a more astute man than the detective, in that he possessed a strain of Semitic imagination, a quick wit, and a fair degree of insight.  He was in his glory in a case like this.  This was shown now by his gleaming eyes and the trembling hand which pulled nervously at his short, black moustache.  Goldberger’s moustache was a good index to his mental state—­the more ragged it grew, the more baffling he found the case in hand!

Both he and Simmonds glanced up at our entrance and nodded briefly.  Then their eyes went back to that huddled figure.

There were three other men present whom I did not know, but I judged them to be the plain-clothes-men whom Simmonds had brought along at Godfrey’s suggestion.  They stood a little to one side until their superiors had completed the examination.

“I didn’t stop to pick up my physician,” Goldberger was saying.  “But the cause of death is plain enough.”

“Doctor Hinman here is a physician,” I said, bringing him forward.  “If he can be of any service....”

Goldberger glanced at him, and was plainly favorably impressed by Hinman’s dark, eager face, and air of intelligence and self-control.

“I shall be very glad of Dr. Hinman’s help,” said Goldberger, shaking hands with him.  “Have you examined the body, sir?”

“Only very casually,” answered Hinman.  “But it is evident that the cause of death was strangulation.”