you by any chance observe whether or not any of the windows in the room were open?"
"I did. They were all closed. I noticed it instinctively, because, when I first entered the room, I was conscious of the heavy, oppressive atmosphere of the place and, knowing that the room had been long closed, wondered that Mr. Ashton had not opened the windows. I suppose it was because his long stay in the East had rendered him sensitive to our cold English weather."
"After you left Mr. Ashton's room, what did you do?"
"I retired to my own room, partially undressed, and again threw myself upon the bed."
"Did you sleep?"
"No. I could not."
"When did you again leave your room?"
"About five o'clock. I had been thinking all night about leaving the house. I felt that, after the scene the night before with Mr. Ashton, I could not endure another meeting with him. I got up, put on a walking suit and boots, and, throwing a few things into a satchel, stole quietly down stairs, opened the front door and went out."
"Where did you go?"
"I—I left the porch, and set out across the lawns, taking a short cut to the main road to the town."
I observed that Miss Temple was showing a greater and greater appearance of distress as the magistrate pursued inexorably the line of questioning that would lead her to the disclosures which I knew she feared to make. Her face, white and drawn, twitched pathetically under the stress of her emotions. She spoke in a low, penetrating voice, little more than a whisper, yet so silent was the court-room that what she said was audible to its furthermost corner. As I gazed at her in silent pity, I heard the Magistrate ask the next question.
"How far did you go?"
"I went—I—I think it must have been about thirty yards—as far as the corner of the house."
"The corner of the west wing?"
"Yes." Her voice was growing more and more faint.
"Why did you not go further? What caused you to stop?"
"I—I saw somebody upon the roof of the porch."
"Was it light?"
"There was a faint light in the sky, of early dawn. I walked over toward the path, and looked up at the porch roof."
"What did you see?"
"I saw someone get out of the window from the hall, on to the roof. I—I—They walked over to Mr. Ashton's window and seemed to be trying to open it."
"Who was it?" The crucial question of all that had been asked her came like the snapping of a lash, and, as she comprehended it, her face became flushed, then ghastly pale.
"I—I—must I answer that question?"
"You must."
"But—I—I cannot!" she burst into sobs, and buried her face in her hands. I feared that she was going to faint.
The Magistrate looked at her sternly.
"Miss Temple," he said, "evidence has been given here this morning which points strongly toward a prisoner in this court as the person guilty of Mr. Ashton's death. Your answer to my question may confirm or disprove his guilt. I direct you to answer my question at once. Whom did you see upon the porch roof?"
Miss Temple looked despairingly about her, rose with a ghastly look from her chair, and, facing the magistrate said: "It—it—oh, my God!—it was my father!" Then she collapsed limply against the rail.
Major Temple rose from his seat and stood white and trembling. "Muriel!" he cried, in a voice filled with incredulous amazement and horror, which rang throughout the whole room.
I sprang forward with outstretched arms, but Inspector Burns was before me. He placed Miss Temple tenderly in her chair: she was unconscious.
Chapter 11
THE VENGEANCE OF BUDDHA
When Miss Temple launched her terrible and unwilling accusation against her father, and was carried unconscious from the room, I realized that I was, to all intents and purposes, a free man. Whatever the circumstantial evidence which had been so cleverly brought against me by the Scotland Yard men, I knew that it could have no weight against actual testimony to the effect that it was Major Temple, and not myself, who had, early that morning, crept out upon the roof of the porch and entered Ashton's room by way of his window. Miss Temple, it is true, had testified that the window was closed, but she could not know whether or not it was bolted, or whether Ashton had opened it later, before retiring, to secure fresh air in his room during the night. To me it seemed probable that he had. How to account for its subsequent rebolting from the inside I could not imagine, unless Major Temple had done it, unknown to me, when we first entered the room on the morning of the tragedy. I looked to see all these matters cleared up when he was placed upon the stand, and I was not surprised to see one of the officers in the court approach the figure sitting bowed and silent among the buzzing spectators and, laying a hand upon his shoulder, bend down and whisper a few low words into his unheeding ear. That Major Temple's arrest must inevitably follow his daughter's testimony was apparent to everyone. He arose and was about to accompany the officer to the dock, when there was a murmur of voices about the door, and I saw Sergeant McQuade enter with the ugly figure of Li Min beside him, followed by the interpreter, while Inspector Burns, stepping quickly to the Magistrate's desk, said a few hurried words to him in a low voice.
The Magistrate, apparently very much surprised, turned to the court-room, rapped loudly for order and motioned to the officer in charge of Major Temple to release him. Sergeant McQuade, meanwhile, with his prisoner, had advanced to the dock, and without further ceremony I saw the court attendants administer the oath, the import of this being explained to the Chinaman by the interpreter.
I learned afterward that Li Min, upon his first appearance as a witness, had been under the impression that he was being tried for his attempt to steal my satchel, and, as he did not then know that his compatriots in London had secured the emerald, feared to make disclosures regarding his attempt to secure it which would inform the police of its whereabouts. The interpreter, a Chinaman of the better class, who was in the habit of acting in this capacity for the police, had argued with him during the noon hour, had convinced him that he was not charged with any crime, that the emerald Buddha had been secured by his friends in London, and was, ere now, no doubt, on its way back to China. Under these circumstances he was at last persuaded to tell his story and, after an interminable amount of questioning, it was at last dragged from him. I have placed his testimony together into the form of a narrative, which will enable the reader to understand its purport, without being under the necessity of going through the laborious cross-questioning by the Magistrate and the interpreter which was necessary in order to drag it forth.
It seems that Li Min, a native of South China, and by religion a follower of Buddha, had associated himself with the reform movement in China, which has drawn into its ranks many of the most intelligent of the Chinese. Like many of his countrymen, he was under suspicion, and, knowing the enmity of the Dowager Empress and her advisers toward the movement, had come
