There, on the floor, lay his body, still in the same attitude in which he had died and almost as Grady had found him gasping.  Grady’s description of the horrible look on his face was, if anything, an understatement.

As I stood with my eyes riveted on the horror-stricken face on the floor, Kennedy had been quietly going over the furniture and carpet about the body.

“Look!” he exclaimed at last, scarcely turning to us.  On the chair, the writing-table, and even on the walls were little pitted marks and scratches.  He bent down over the carpet.  There, reflecting the electric light, scattered all about, were little fine pieces of something that glittered.

“You have a vacuum cleaner, I suppose?” inquired Craig, rising quickly.

“Certainly—­a plant in the cellar.”

“No; I mean one that is portable.”

“Yes; we have that, too,” answered Grady, hurrying to the room telephone to have the cleaner sent up.

Kennedy now began to look through Shirley’s baggage.  There was, however, nothing to indicate that it had been rifled.

I noted, among other things, a photograph of a woman in Oriental dress, dusky, languorous, of more than ordinary beauty and intelligence.  On it something was written in native characters.

Just then a boy wheeled the cleaner down the hall, and Kennedy quickly shoved the photograph into his pocket.

First, Kennedy removed the dust that was already in the machine.  Then he ran the cleaner carefully over the carpet, the upholstery, everything about that corner of the room where the body lay.  When he had finished he emptied out the dust into a paper and placed it in his pocket.  He was just finishing when there came a knock at the door, and it was opened.

“Mr. Grady?” said a young man, entering hurriedly.

“Oh, hello, Glenn!  One of the night clerks in the office, Kennedy,” introduced the house detective.

“I’ve just heard of the—­murder,” Glenn began.  “I was in the dining-room, being relieved for my little midnight luncheon as usual, when I heard of it, and I thought that perhaps you might want to know something that happened just before I went off duty.”

“Yes; anything,” broke in Kennedy.

“It was early in the evening,” returned the clerk, slowly, “when a messenger left a little package for Captain Shirley—­said that Captain Shirley had had it sent himself and asked that it be placed in his room.  It was a little affair in a plain, paper-wrapped parcel.  I sent one of the boys up with it and a key, and told him to put the package on the writing-desk tip here.”

Kennedy looked at me.  That, then, was the way something, whatever it might be, was introduced into the room.

“When the captain came in,” resumed the night clerk, “I saw there was a letter for him in the mailbox and handed it to him.  He stood before the office desk while he opened it.  I thought he looked queer.  The contents seemed to alarm him.”