"It's almost as though he had been struck down by a spirit hand, Kennedy."
Grady, the house detective of the Prince Edward Charles Hotel, had routed us out of bed
in the middle of the night with a hurried call for help, and now met us in the lobby of the
fashionable hostelry. All that he had said over the wire was that there had been a murder-
-"an Englishman, a Captain Shirley."
"Why," exclaimed Grady, lowering his voice as he led us through the lobby, "it's the most
mysterious thing, I think, that I've ever seen!"
"In what way?" prompted Kennedy.
"Well," continued Grady, "it must have been just a bit after midnight that one of the
elevator-boys heard what sounded like a muffled report in a room on the tenth floor.
There were other employees and some guests about at the time, and it was only a matter
of seconds before they were on the spot. Finally, the sound was located as having come
probably from Captain Shirley's room. But the door was locked--on the inside. There was
no response, although some one had seen him ride up in the elevator scarcely five
minutes before. By that time they had sent for me. We broke in. There was Shirley, alone,
fully dressed, lying on the floor before a writing-table. His face was horribly set, as
though he had perhaps seen something that frightened and haunted him--though I suppose
it might have been the pain that did it. I think he must have heard something, jumped
from the chair, perhaps in fear, then have fallen down on the floor almost immediately.
"We hurried over to him. He was still alive, but could not speak. I turned him over, tried
to rouse him and make him comfortable. It was only then that I saw that he was really
conscious. But it seemed as if his tongue and most of his muscles were paralyzed.
Somehow he managed to convey to us the idea that it was his heart that troubled him
most.
"Really, at first I thought it was a case of suicide. But there was no sign of a weapon
about and not a trace of poison--no glass, no packet. There was no wound on him, either--
except a few slight cuts and scratches on his face and hands. But none of them looked to
be serious. And yet, before we could get the house physician up to him he was dead."
"And with not a word?" queried Kennedy.
"That's the strangest part of it. No; not a word spoken. But as he lay there, even in spite of
his paralyzed muscles, he was just able to motion with his hands. I thought he wanted to
write, and gave him a pencil and a piece of paper. He clutched at them, but here is all he
was able to do."
Grady drew from his pocket a piece of paper and handed it to us. On it were printed in
trembling, irregular characters, "G A D," the "D" scarcely finished and trailing off. into
nothing.
What did it all mean? How had Shirley met his death, and why?
"Tell me something about him," said Kennedy, studying the paper with a frown. Grady
shrugged his shoulders.
"An Englishman--that's about all I know. Looked like one of the younger sons who so
frequently go out to seek their fortunes in the colonies. By his appearance, I should say he
had been in the Far East--India, no doubt. And I imagine he had made good. He seemed
to have plenty of money. That's all I know about him."
"Is anything missing from his room?" I asked. "Could it have been a robbery?"
"I searched the room hastily," replied Grady. "Apparently not a thing had been touched. I
don't think it was robbery."
By this time we had made our way through the lobby and were in the elevator.
"I've kept the room just as it was," went on Grady to Kennedy, lowering his voice. "I've
even delayed a bit in notifying the police, so that you could get here first."
A moment later we entered the rooms, a fairly expensive suite, consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, and bath. Everything was in a condition to indicate that Shirley had just
come in when the shot, if shot it had been, was fired.
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."
"What was in it?" asked Kennedy. "Could you see?"
"I got one glimpse. It seemed to be nothing but a little scarlet bead with a black spot on it.
In his surprise, he dropped a piece of paper from the envelope in which the bead had been
wrapped up. I thought it was strange, and, as he hurried over to the elevator, I picked it
up. Here it is."
The clerk handed over a crumpled piece of notepaper. On it was scrawled the word
"Gadhr," and underneath, "Beware!" I spelled out the first strange word. It had an
ominous sound--"Gadhr." Suddenly there flashed through my mind the letters Shirley had
tried to print but had not finished, "G A D."
Kennedy looked at the paper a moment.
"Gadhr!" he exclaimed, in a low, tense tone. "Revolt--the native word for unrest in India,
the revolution!"
We stared at each other blankly. All of us had been reading lately in the despatches about
the troubles there, hidden under the ban of the censorship. I knew that the Hindu
propaganda in America was as yet in its infancy, although several plots and conspiracies
had been hatched here.
"Is there any one in the hotel whom you might suspect?" asked Kennedy.
Grady cleared his throat and looked at the night clerk significantly.
"Well," he answered, thoughtfully, "across the hall there is a new guest who came to-day-
-or, rather, yesterday--a Mrs. Anthony. We don't know anything about her, except that
she looks like a foreigner. She did not come directly from abroad, but must have been
living in New York for some time. They tell me she asked for a room on this floor, at this
end of the hall."
"H'm!" considered Kennedy. "I'd like to see her--without being seen."
"I think I can arrange that," acquiesced Grady. "You and Jameson stay in the bedroom.
I'll ask her to come over here, and then you can get a good look at her."
The plan satisfied Kennedy, and together we entered the bedroom, putting out the light
and leaving the door just a trifle ajar.
A moment later Mrs. Anthony entered. I heard a suppressed gasp from Kennedy.
"The woman in the photograph!" he whispered to me.
I studied her face minutely from our coign of vantage. There was, indeed, a resemblance,
too striking to be mere coincidence.
In the presence of Grady, she seemed to be nervous and on guard, as though she knew,
intuitively, that she was suspected.
"Did you know Captain Shirley?" shot out Grady.
Kennedy looked over at me and frowned. I knew that something more subtle than New
York police methods would be necessary in order to get anything from a woman like this.
"No," she replied, quietly. "You see, I just came here to-day." Her voice had an English
accent.
"Did you hear a shot?"
"No," she replied. "The voices in the hall wakened me, though I did not know what was
the matter until just now."
"Then you made no effort to find out?" inquired Grady, suspiciously.
"I am alone here in the city," she answered, simply. "I was afraid to intrude."
Throughout she gave the impression that she was strangely reticent about herself.
Evidently Kennedy had not much faith that Grady would elicit anything of importance.
He tiptoed to the door that led from the bedroom to the hall and found that it could be
opened from the inside.
While Grady continued his questioning, Craig and I slipped out into the hall to the room
which Mrs. Anthony occupied.
It was a suite much plainer than that occupied by Shirley. Craig switched on the light and
looked about hastily and keenly.
For a moment he stood before a dressing-table on which were several toilet articles. A
jewel-case seemed to attract his attention, and he opened it. Inside were some
comparatively trifling trinkets. The thing that caused him to exclaim, however, was a
necklace, broken and unstrung. I looked, too. It was composed of little crimson beads,
each with a black spot on it!
Quickly he drew from his pocket the photograph he had taken from Shirley's baggage. As
I looked at it again there could be no doubt now in my mind of the identity of the
original. It was the same face. And about the neck, in the picture, was a necklace, plainly
the same as that before us.
"What are the beads?" I asked, fingering them. "I've never seen anything like them."
"Not beads at all," he replied. "They are Hindu prayer-beans, sometimes called ruttee,
jequirity beans, seeds of the plant known to science as Abrus precatorius. They produce a
deadly poison-- abrin." He slipped four or five of them into his pocket. Then he resumed
his cursory search of the room. There, on a writing-pad, was a note which Mrs. Anthony
had evidently been engaged in writing. Craig pored over it for some time, while I
fidgeted. It was nothing but a queer jumble of letters:
SOWC FSSJWA EKNLFFBY WOVHLX IHWAJYKH 101MLEL EPJNVPSL
WCLURL GHIHDA ELBA.
"Come," I cautioned; "she may return any moment."
Quickly he copied off the letters.
"It's a cipher," he said, simply, "a new and rather difficult one, too, I imagine. But I may
be able to decipher it."
Kennedy withdrew from the room and, instead of going back to Shirley's, rode down in
the elevator to find the night clerk.
"Had Captain Shirley any friends in the city?" asked Craig.
Glenn shrugged his shoulders.
"He was out most of the time," he replied. "He seemed to be very occupied about
something. No, I don't think I ever saw him speak to a soul here, except a word to the
waiters and the boys. Once, though," he recollected, "he was called up by a Mrs.
Beekman Rogers."
"Mrs. Beekman Rogers," repeated Kennedy, jotting the name down and looking it up in
the telephone-book. She lived on Riverside Drive, and, slender though the information
was, Kennedy seemed glad to get it.
Grady joined us a moment later, having been wondering where we had disappeared.
"You saw her?" he asked. "What did you think of her?"
"Worth watching," was all Kennedy would say. "Did you get anything out of her?"
Grady shook his head.
"But I am convinced she knows something," he insisted.
Kennedy was about to reply when he was interrupted by the arrival of a couple of
detectives from the city police, tardily summoned by Grady.
"I shall let you know the moment I have discovered anything," he said, as he bade Grady
good-by. "And thank you for letting me have a chance at the case before all the clues had
been spoiled."
Late though it was, in the laboratory Kennedy set to work examining the dust which he
had swept up by the vacuum cleaner, as well as the jequirity beans he had taken from
Mrs. Anthony's jewel-case.
I do not know how much sleep he had, but I managed to snatch a few hours' rest, and
early in the morning I found him at work again, examining the cipher message which he
had copied.
"By the way," he said, scarcely looking up as he saw me again, "there is something quite
important which you can do for me." Rather pleased to be of some use, I waited eagerly.
"I wish you'd go out and see what you can find out about that Mrs. Beekman Rogers," he
continued. "I've some work here that will keep me for several hours; so come back to me
here."
It was such a commission as he had often given me before, and, through my connection
with the Star, I found no difficulty in executing it.
I found that Mrs. Rogers was well known in a certain circle of society in the city. She was
wealthy and had the reputation of having given quite liberally to many causes that had
interested her. Just now, her particular fad was Oriental religions, and some of her bizarre
beliefs had attracted a great deal of attention. A couple of years before she had made a
trip around the world, and had lived in India for several months, apparently fascinated by
the life and attracted to the mysteries of Oriental faiths.
With my budget of information I hastened back again to join Kennedy at the laboratory. I
could see that the cipher was still unread. From that, I conjectured that it was, as he had
guessed, constructed on some new and difficult plan.
"What do you think of Mrs. Rogers?" I asked, as I finished reciting what I had learned.
"Is it possible that she can be in this revolutionary propaganda?" He shook his head
doubtfully.
"Much of the disaffection that exists in India to-day," he replied, "is due to the
encouragement and financial assistance which it has received from people here in this
country, although only a fraction of the natives of India have ever heard of us. Much of
the money devoted to the cause of revolution and anarchy in India is contributed by
worthy people who innocently believe that their subscriptions are destined to promote the
cause of native enlightenment. I prefer to believe that there is some such explanation in
her case. At any rate, I think that we had better make a call on Mrs. Rogers."
Early that afternoon, accordingly, we found ourselves at the door of the large stone house
on Riverside Drive in which Mrs. Rogers lived. Kennedy inquired for her, and we were
admitted to a large reception-room, the very decorations of which showed evidence of her
leaning toward the Orient. Mrs. Rogers proved to be a widow of baffling age, good-looking, with a certain indefinable attractiveness.
Kennedy's cue was obvious. It was to be an eager neophyte in the mysteries of the East,
and he played the part perfectly without overdoing it.
"Perhaps you would like to come to some of the meetings of our Cult of the Occult," she
suggested.
"Delighted, I am sure," returned Kennedy. She handed him a card.
"We have a meeting this afternoon at four," she explained. "I should be glad to welcome
you among us."
Kennedy thanked her and rose to go, preferring to say nothing more just then about the
problems which vexed us in the Shirley case, lest it should make further investigation
more difficult.
Nothing more had happened at the hotel, as we heard from Grady a few minutes later,
and, as there was some time before the cult met, we returned to the laboratory.
Things had evidently progressed well, even in the few hours that he had been studying his
meager evidence. Not only was he making a series of delicate chemical tests, but, in
cases, he had several guinea-pigs which he was using also.
He now studied through a microscope some of the particles of dust from the vacuum
cleaner.
"Little bits of glass," he said, briefly, taking his eye from the eyepiece. "Captain Shirley
was not shot."
"Not shot?" I repeated. "Then how was he killed?"
Kennedy eyed me gravely.
"Shirley was murdered by a poisoned bomb!"
I said nothing, for the revelation was even more startling than I had imagined.
"In that package which was placed in his room," he went on, "must have been a little
infernal machine of glass, constructed so as to explode the moment the wrapper was
broken. The flying pieces of glass injected the poison as by a myriad of hypodermic
needles-- the highly poisonous toxin of abrin, product of the jequirity, which is ordinarily
destroyed in the stomach but acts powerfully if injected into the blood. Shirley died of
jequirity poisoning, or rather of the alkaloid in the bean. It has been used in India for
criminal poisoning for ages. Only, there it is crushed, worked into a paste, and rolled into
needle-pointed forms which prick the skin. Abrin is composed of two albuminous bodies,
one of which resembles snake-venom in all its effects, attacking the heart, making the
temperature fall rapidly, and leaving the blood fluid after death. It is a vegetable toxin,
quite comparable with ricin from the castor-oil bean."
In spite of my horror at the diabolical plot that had been aimed at Shirley, my mind ran
along, keenly endeavoring to piece together the scattered fragments of the case. Some
one, of course, had sent the package while he was out and had it placed in his room. Had
it been the same person who had sent the single jequirity bean? My mind instantly
reverted to the strange woman across the hall, the photograph in his luggage, and the
broken necklace in the jewel-case.
Kennedy continued looking at the remainder of the jequirity beans and a liquid he had
developed from some of them. Finally, with a glance at his watch, he placed a tube of the
liquid in a leather case in his pocket.
"This may not be the only murder," he remarked, sententiously. "It is best to be prepared.
Come; we must get up to that meeting."
We journeyed up-town and arrived at the little private hall which the Cult of the Occult
had hired somewhat ahead of the time set for the meeting, as Kennedy had aimed to do.
Mrs. Rogers was already there and met us at the door.
"So glad to see you," she welcomed, leading us in.
As we entered we could breathe the characteristic pervading odor of sandalwood. Rich
Oriental hangings were on the walls, interspersed with cabalistic signs, while at one end
was a raised dais.
Mrs. Rogers introduced us to a rather stout, middle-aged, sallow- faced individual in a
turban and flowing robes of rustling purple silk. His eyes were piercing, small, and black.
The plump, unhealthy, milk-white fingers of his hands were heavy with ornate rings. He
looked like what I should have imagined a swami to be, and such, I found, was indeed his
title.
"The Swami Rajmanandra," introduced Mrs. Rogers.
He extended his flabby hand in welcome, while Kennedy eyed him keenly. We were not
permitted many words with the swami, however, for Mrs. Rogers next presented us to a
younger but no less interesting-looking Oriental who was in Occidental dress.
"This is Mr. Singh Bandematarain," said Mrs. Rogers. "You know, he has been sent here
by the nizam of his province to be educated at the university."
Mrs. Rogers then hastened to conduct us to seats as, one by one, the worshipers entered.
They were mostly women of the aristocratic type who evidently found in this cult a new
fad to occupy their jaded craving for the sensational. In the dim light, there was
something almost sepulchral about the gathering, and their complexions seemed as white
as wax.
Again the door opened and another woman entered. I felt the pressure of Kennedy's hand
on my arm and turned my eyes unobtrusively. It was Mrs. Anthony.
Quietly she seemed to glide over the floor toward the swami and, for a moment, stood
talking to him. I saw Singh eye her with a curious look. Was it fear or suspicion?
I had come expecting to see something weird and wild, perhaps the exhibition of an
Indian fakir--I know not what. In that, at least, I was disappointed. The Swami
Rajmanandra, picturesque though he was, talked most fascinatingly about his religion,
but either the theatricals were reserved for an inner circle or else we were subtly
suspected, for I soon found myself longing for the meeting to close so that we could
observe those whom we had come to watch.
I had almost come to the conclusion that our mission had been a failure when the swami
concluded and the visitors swarmed forward to talk with the holy man from the East.
Kennedy managed to make his way about the circle to Mrs. Rogers and soon was in an
animated conversation.
"Were you acquainted with a Captain Shirley?" he asked, finally, as she opened the way
for the question by a remark about her life in Calcutta.
"Y-yes," she replied, hesitating; "I read in the papers this morning that he was found
dead, most mysteriously. Terrible, wasn't it? Yes, I met him in Calcutta while I was there.
Why, he was on his way to London, and came to New York and called on me."
My eye followed the direction of Mrs. Rogers's. She was talking to us, but really her
attention was centered on Mrs. Anthony and the swami together. As I glanced back at her
I caught sight of Singh, evidently engaged in watching the same two that I was. Did he
have some suspicion of Mrs. Anthony? Why was he watching Mrs. Rogers? I determined
to study the two women more closely. I saw that Kennedy had already noticed what I had
seen.
"One very peculiar thing," he said, deliberately modulating his voice so that it could be
heard by those about us, "was that, just before he was killed, some one sent a prayer-bean
from a necklace to him."
At the mention of the necklace I saw that Mrs. Rogers was all attention. Involuntarily she
shot a glance at Mrs. Anthony, as if she noted that she was not wearing the necklace now.
"Is that Englishwoman a member of the cult?" queried Kennedy, a moment later, as, quite
naturally, he looked over at Mrs. Anthony. "Who is she?"
"Oh," replied Mrs. Rogers, quickly, "she isn't an Englishwoman at all. She is a Hindu--I
believe, a former nautch-girl, daughter of a nautch-girl. She passes by the name of Mrs.
Anthony, but really her name is Kalia Dass. Every one in Calcutta knew her."
Kennedy quietly drew his card-case from his pocket and handed a card to Mrs. Rogers.
"I should like to talk to you about her some time," he said, in a careful whisper. "If
anything happens--don't hesitate to call on me."
Before Mrs. Rogers could recover from her surprise Kennedy had said good-by and we
were on our way to the laboratory.
"That's a curious situation," I observed. "Can you make it out? How does Shirley fit into
this thing?"
Craig hesitated a moment, as though debating whether to say anything, even to me, about
his suspicions.
"Suppose," he said, slowly, "that Shirley was a secret agent of the British government,
charged with the mission of finding out whether Mrs. Rogers was contributing--
unknowi