think Mr Balfour put up no fight?’
‘I can’t say. But it’s quite possible that the killer chloroformed his victim and then stabbed him when he was helpless.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’ve little more to tell. After a time, I’ve no means of knowing how long, I began to come out of the stupor and even then it took some time to regain my full senses. When I was able to do so I went over and looked at Mr Balfour and saw him as you see him now. I looked hastily round, saw no intruder present, saw no definite or striking evidence that anyone had been here, yet there was the dead body of my employer and friend. I did the only possible thing, I called the police. Then I tried to get Mr Sewell. He was not at home, but Mrs Sewell told me he was probably even then at Mr Balfour’s house, and I called up and he was there. I asked him to come here without telling Mrs Balfour anything about it, and I assume he did so.’
‘I did,’ said Sewell, ‘and of course I believe your story, Keith. In fact, it’s the only thing that could have happened. How else could Philip Balfour have been killed?’
‘For my part,’ said the detective, ‘I don’t believe one single word of Mr Ramsay’s recital. We will investigate it, of course, but it doesn’t ring true to me.’
DOCTOR JAMISON, the Medical Examiner, was what the novelists call a strong, silent man. Two not indispensable traits for one of his calling, for his strength was seldom needed and his silence was frequently exceedingly annoying.
On his arrival, he gave a brief nod that seemed intended as a general greeting, and went straight to the body of Philip Balfour.
The situation seemed to him quite apparent. Beyond doubt, Philip Balfour had been killed by the vigorous stab which had also felled him to the floor.
‘What’s this thing?’ the Examiner demanded, carefully drawing the long weapon out of the wound.
‘It’s an old silver skewer,’ Sewell told him. ‘Early English, Georgian, most likely. It is my property and was lying on that table beside you when last I saw it.’
‘Then it was handy for the murder,’ exclaimed the Inspector. ‘They often pick up a weapon on the spot. Eh, Jamison?’
The doctor made no verbal reply nor did he look toward the speaker. Manton held out his hand for the skewer and took it gingerly on a sheet of cardboard he held ready.
It was a beautiful piece. Twelve inches long, exactly, it tapered from the point to the ring at the top, which measured an inch across.
The ring and the blade were all in one piece, the ring being not unlike a plain wedding ring.
‘There’s a hallmark on it,’ Manton observed, ‘you know, four little bits of squares under one another with designs in them. A lion and a sort of crown and a letter H and something I can’t make out. And above it all, some letters—’
‘Give it to me,’ said Burnet, ‘you’ll spoil the fingerprints—if any.’ The Captain took the skewer and laid it carefully aside.
The finger-print man, who with the camera men had come at the time Jamison did, turned his attention to the weapon.
‘It served its purpose,’ he remarked; ‘in all the detective stories, the killer uses a dagger from foreign parts, masquerading as a paper-cutter. I’ll bet there’s no prints on it. The killer was too cute.’
‘He knew his way about,’ vouchsafed John Sewell. ‘He took his ready-made weapon from the table and he lifted it with a cloth that belongs here. See that piece of flannel on the floor beside Mr Balfour’s shoulder? That’s a duster I keep to flirt around now and then. And I keep it in this desk drawer, which, as you see, is now empty. So you’re looking for a chap who knows this place familiarly.’
Sewell stopped suddenly, for he realized this could be made to apply to Keith Ramsay, who sat staring at him but saying no word.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Detective Burnet. ‘You been here before, Mr Ramsay?’
‘Many times,’ said Keith, speaking indifferently.
‘I have a couple of dozen friends who come here ten times as often as Mr Ramsay,’ Sewell declared, ‘and they all know where I keep that dust-cloth. That’s no clue. But I’ll give you a pointer. A new development in finger-printing allows prints to be secured from fabrics—a trick only lately used. Save that duster, Inspector, you may bring in your man with its help. And you needn’t look toward Mr Ramsay; I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it were possible to imagine him implicated.’
The Examiner rose from his stooping posture and said, succinctly: ‘Stabbed straight through the heart with that skewer. A strong, hard blow. Died practically instantly. Stabbed by a man who used his right hand. Took the blow without resistance, so probably unconscious at the moment.’
‘Was he chloroformed, too?’ asked Burnet.
‘I think not. More likely knocked out by a blow. Here’s a lump on his jaw made by a blow that would have smashed an ox.’
‘How long’s he been dead?’ Manton asked.
‘Dunno. Not long. Half an hour more or less.’
‘The blow on his jaw didn’t kill him?’
‘No. Guess I’ll be gettin’ on, now. You can send the body to the morgue. Any notion who killed him?’
‘No,’ said John Sewell, before anyone else could speak.
‘I have,’ said Keith Ramsay, slowly. ‘It comes back to me now that a man came in at the back door—it must have been the back door, because I heard a slight creak—and I heard a noise like someone falling, and when I looked round, I saw a man with a black satin mask on coming toward me, and as I looked past him, toward Mr Balfour, I saw he was crumpled up on the floor.’
Detective Burnet regarded the speaker with unconcealed derision.
‘Just made that up?’ he inquired, sarcastically. ‘An important fact like that, and you forgot it in your first account!’
‘Exactly,’ returned Keith; ‘and you’d forget things, too, if you were given a knock-out dose of chloroform.’
‘Tell me a little more about the man in the iron mask,’ said Manton as the Medical Examiner went away.
‘It wasn’t iron,’ said Keith, seriously. ‘But it was black satin. Not just a piece of stuff with eyeholes cut in it, but a regular, well-made mask, like you’d buy for a party.’
‘You looked at it very carefully, Mr Ramsay,’ and Manton shook his head a little.
‘Not consciously. For a few seconds I saw the man coming toward me and, as I stared, the mental picture of that mask fixed itself in my brain permanently. I think I should know it if I saw it again.
