“And, of course,” said Goldberger, taking the cord again and looking at it, “it was while the murderer was making it into a noose with his blood-stained fingers that he stained it in that way.  Don’t you agree, Mr. Godfrey?”

“That is a possible explanation,” Godfrey conceded.

“But why did he make this second knot?” inquired the coroner; “the knot which holds the noose tight and prevents it from slipping?”

“If he hadn’t knotted it like that he would have had to stand there holding it until his victim was dead.  As it was, he didn’t have to wait.”

I shivered a little at the thought of the scoundrel calmly tying the knot to secure his noose, and then leaving his victim to twitch his life out.

“It’s no little trick to tie a knot like that,” Godfrey added, thoughtfully.  “I should like to study it.”

“All right,” agreed Goldberger; “you can have it whenever you want it,” and he got a heavy manila envelope out of his pocket and placed the cord carefully inside.  “Now we must get that robe off.  We can’t run any risk of having those finger-prints smeared.”

It was a difficult job and a revolting one, for the body had stiffened into its huddled posture, but at last the robe was removed and the body itself lying at full length on its back on the couch.  Seen thus, with the light full on it, the face was horrible, and Goldberger laid his handkerchief over the swollen and distorted features, while, at a sign from him, Simmonds pulled down the portiere from the inner door and placed it over the body.  Then the coroner picked up the robe and held it out at arms’ length.

“What kind of a freak dress is this, anyway?” he asked.

“It’s a robe,” said Godfrey.  “Mr. Vaughan was a mystic.”

“A what?”

“A mystic—­a believer in Hinduism or some other Oriental religion.”

“Did he dress this way all the time?”

“I believe so.  It is probably the dress of his order.”

Goldberger rolled the robe up carefully, and said nothing more; but I could see from his expression that he had ceased to wonder why Vaughan had come to a strange and violent end.  Surely anything might happen to a mystic!  Then he placed the blood-stained handkerchief in another envelope, and finally put his hand in his pocket and brought out half a dozen cigars.

“Now,” he said, “let’s sit down and rest awhile.  Simmonds tells me it was you who called him, Mr. Godfrey.  How did you happen to discover the crime?”

The question was asked carelessly, but I could feel the alert mind behind it.  I knew that Godfrey felt it, too, from the way in which he told the story, for he told it carefully, and yet with an air of keeping nothing back.

Of the mysterious light he said nothing, but, starting with my finding of the letter and summoning Swain to receive it, told of the arrangements for the rendezvous, dwelling upon it lightly, as a love-affair which could have no connection with the tragedy.  He passed on to his own arrival from the city, to Swain’s return from the rendezvous, and finally to the screams which had reached us, and to the discovery we had made when we burst into the house.