The Gloved Hand, Burton Egbert Stevenson [first ebook reader txt] 📗

pupil."

"In what way did you come to accept this position?"

"Two years ago, Mr. Vaughan visited the monastery of our order in Crete. He was at that time merely a student of Orientalism, and came to us from curiosity. But his interest grew; and after a year spent in studying the holy books, he asked that a teacher be sent to him. There was none at that time who could be spared; but six months ago, having completed a task which had occupied me in Paris, I was assigned to this."

"Do you always go to so much trouble to secure converts?" questioned Goldberger, a little cynically.

"Usually we require that the period of study be passed at one of our monasteries. But this case was exceptional."

"In what way?"

"It was our hope," explained the yogi, calmly, "that Mr. Vaughan would assist us in spreading the Great Truth by endowing a monastery for us in this country."

"Ah!" and Goldberger looked at him. "Did he agree to do so?"

"He did," answered the yogi, still more calmly. "This estate was to have been given to us for that purpose, together with an endowment sufficient to maintain it. Mr. Vaughan himself hoped to gain the White Robe and become a teacher."

"What was to become of his daughter?"

"It was his hope that she would become a priestess of our order."

"You hoped so, too, no doubt?" inquired Goldberger sweetly.

"I did. It is an office of high honour and great influence. She would walk all her days in the shadow of the Holy One. So sweet a cup is offered to few women. The number of priestesses is limited to nine."

Goldberger pulled at his moustache helplessly. Evidently the witness's calm self-control was not to be broken down, or even ruffled.

"Please tell me where you were night before last," said the coroner, finally.

"I was in this house."

"Did you see Mr. Vaughan?"

"I did not."

"How did you spend the night?"

"In contemplation. It was, as I have told you, the White Night of Siva, sacred to him from sunset to sunrise."

"Do you mean that you spent the whole night sitting before that crystal?" asked the coroner, incredulously.

"That is my meaning."

"You know nothing, then, of the death of Mr. Vaughan?"

"I saw his soul pass in the night. More than that I know not."

Again Goldberger twitched at his moustache. He was plainly at a loss how to proceed.

"Was your attendant with you?" he asked, at last.

"He was in his closet."

"At his devotions too, perhaps?"

"The White Night of Siva is also the Black Night of Kali," said the yogi, gravely, as one rebuking an unworthy levity.

"What do you mean by that?" Goldberger demanded.

"Mahbub is of the cult of Kali, who is the wife of Siva," said the yogi, touching his forehead reverently as he spoke the words. "He spent the night in adoration of her attributes."

Goldberger's stenographer was having his difficulties; the pencils of the reporters were racing wildly in unison; everyone was listening with strained attention; there was, somehow, a feeling in the air that something was about to happen. I saw Godfrey write a line upon a sheet of paper, fold it, and toss it on the table in front of Goldberger. The coroner opened it, read the line, and stared at the impassive Mahbub, who stood beside his master with folded arms, staring over the heads of the crowd.

"In other words," said Goldberger, slowly, "your attendant is a Thug."

The yogi bowed.

"Yes," he said, calmly; "Mahbub is Thuggee."

CHAPTER XIV THE FINGER-PRINTS

A shiver ran through the crowd, like a gust of wind across a field of wheat. The words, "Mahbub is Thuggee," seemed to rend the veil which obscured the tragedy. Surely it was clear enough, now: here was a man killed by Thuggee's peculiar method, and here was the Thug. It was as simple as two and two!

Every eye was on the bare-legged Hindu, impassive as ever, staring straight before him. The camera-men hastily pushed in fresh plates and trained their machines upon him. Two policemen edged close to his side.

But Francisco Silva looked about him with scornful eyes, and presently he opened his lips as though to speak, and then he closed them.

Goldberger seemed perplexed. He looked as though, while rolling smoothly along the road toward a well-understood goal, he had suddenly struck an unforeseen obstacle. The possibility of Mahbub's guilt seemed to interfere with some theory of his own. He called Simmonds and the district attorney to him, and they exchanged a few low words. Then he turned back to the witness.

"I should like to question your attendant," he said. "Will you translate for me? I have not been able to find a Hindu interpreter."

Silva bowed his consent.

"Ask him, please, where he spent Thursday night."

There was a brief interchange between Silva and Mahbub, then the former turned to Goldberger.

"It was as I thought," he said. "He spent the night in the worship of the attributes of Kali."

The coroner opened an envelope which lay on the table at his elbow and took out a piece of knotted cord.

"Ask him if he ever saw this before," he said, and passed it to the witness.

"I notice that it is stained," said Silva, looking at it. "Is it with blood?"

"Yes."

"Then Mahbub will not touch it. For him to do so, would be to defile himself."

"He doesn't need to touch it. Show it to him."

Silva spoke to his servant, holding up the cord. The latter glanced at it and shook his head. Without a word, Silva handed the cord back to the coroner.

"Are there any further questions?" he asked.

Goldberger pulled at his moustache impatiently.

"There are a lot of questions I'd like to ask," he said, "but I feel a good deal as though I were questioning the Sphinx. Isn't it a little queer that a Thug should be so particular about a few blood-stains?"

"I fear that you are doing Mahbub an injustice in your thoughts," Silva said, gravely. "You have heard certain tales of the Thugs, perhaps—tales distorted and magnified and untrue. In the old days, as worshippers of Kali, they did, sometimes, offer her a human sacrifice; but that was long ago. To say a man is a Thug is not to say he is also a murderer."

"It will take more than that to convict him, anyway," assented Goldberger, quickly. "That is all for the present, professor." I bit back a smile at the title which came so unconsciously from Goldberger's lips.

Silva bowed and walked slowly away toward the house, Mahbub following close behind. At a look from Simmonds, two of his men strolled after the strange couple.

Goldberger stared musingly after them for a moment, then shook his head impatiently, and turned back to the business in hand.

"Will Mr. Swain please take the stand?" he said; and Swain took the chair. "Now, Mr. Swain," Goldberger began, after swearing him, "please tell us, in your own way, of what part you had in the incidents of Thursday night."

Swain told his story much as he had told it to Godfrey and me, and I noticed how closely both Goldberger and the district attorney followed it. When he had finished, Goldberger asked the same question that Godfrey had asked.

"While you were having the altercation with Mr. Vaughan, did you grasp hold of him?"

"No, sir; I did not touch him."

"You are quite sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"You didn't touch him at any time, then or afterwards?"

"No, sir. I didn't see him afterwards."

"What were your feelings when he took his daughter away?"

"I was profoundly grieved."

"And angry?"

"Yes, I suppose I was angry. He was most unjust to me."

"He had used very violent language to you, had he not?"

"Yes."

"He had threatened your life if you tried to see his daughter again?"

"Yes."

"Now, Mr. Swain, as you stood there, angry and humiliated, didn't you make up your mind to follow him to the house and have it out with him?"

Swain smiled.

"I'm lawyer enough to know," he said, "that a question like that isn't permissible. But I'll answer it. I may have had such an impulse—I don't know; but the sight of the cobra there in the arbour put it effectually out of my head."

"You still think there was a cobra?"

"I am sure of it."

"And you ran out of the arbour so fast you bumped your head?"

"I suppose that's what happened. It's mighty sore, anyway," and Swain put his hand to it ruefully.

"Mr. Swain," went on the coroner, slowly, "are you prepared to swear that, after you hurt your head, you might not, in a confused and half-dazed condition, have followed your previous impulse to go to the house and see Mr. Vaughan?"

"Yes," answered Swain, emphatically, "I am. Although I was somewhat dazed, I have a distinct recollection of going straight to the wall and climbing back over it."

"You cut your wrist as you were crossing the wall the first time?"

"I'm lawyer enough to know," he said, "that a question like that is not permissible"

"Yes," and Swain held up his hand and showed the strip of plaster across the wound.

"Your right wrist?"

"Yes."

"It bled freely, did it not?"

"Very freely."

"What became of the clothes you took off when you changed into those brought by Mr. Godfrey?"

"I don't know. Mr. Lester told me they were left here. I intended to inquire for them."

At a sign from Goldberger, Simmonds opened a suit-case and placed a bundle on the table. Goldberger unrolled it and handed it to Swain.

"Are these the clothes?" he asked.

"Yes," said Swain, after a moment's examination.

"Will you hold the shirt up so the jury can see it?"

Swain held the garment up, and everybody's eyes were fixed upon the blood-soaked sleeve.

"There seems to have been a good deal of blood," remarked Goldberger. "It must have run down over your hand."

"It did. It was all over my fingers."

"So that it would probably stain anything you touched?"

"Yes, very probably."

"Did you think of that when you were in the arbour with Miss Vaughan?"

Swain's face suddenly crimsoned and he hung his head.

"I'm afraid not," he said.

"How was she dressed?"

"In a white robe of some silk-like material."

"A robe that would show a blood-stain?"

"Undoubtedly."

Goldberger paused for an instant, and then produced a pad, such as one uses for inking rubber stamps, opened it and placed it on the table before him.

"Have you any objection to giving me a set of your finger-prints?" he asked.

"None whatever," and Swain stepped toward the table and placed the tips of his fingers on the pad. Then he pressed each one carefully upon the pad of paper which the coroner placed before him. Goldberger watched him curiously, until all ten impressions had been made.

"You did that as though you had done it before," he remarked.

"I made a set once for Mr. Vaughan," said Swain, sitting down again. "He had a most interesting collection."

Goldberger passed the prints over to the head of the Bureau of Identification, then he turned back to the witness.

"Mr. Swain," he said, "have you ever seen this cord before?" and he handed him the knotted cord.

Swain took it and examined it curiously, without hesitation or repugnance.

"No," he answered, finally, "I never saw it before."

"Do you know what it is?" and Goldberger watched him closely.

"I infer that it is the cord with which Mr. Vaughan was strangled."

"That is so. You did not see it around his neck?"

"I have no recollection of having done so."

"Please look at the cord again, Mr. Swain," said Goldberger, still watching him. "You will see that it is knotted. Can you describe those knots for me?"

Swain looked at the knots, and I was glad to see that his hands were absolutely steady and his face free from fear. No murderer could handle so unconcernedly the instrument of his crime! Surely the jury would see that!

"The knots," said Swain, at last, "seem to be an ordinary square knot with which the cord was made into a noose, and then a double bowline to secure it."

"A double bowline? Can you tie such a knot?"

"Certainly. Anyone who has ever owned a boat can do so. It is the best knot for this purpose."

The coroner reached out for the cord and replaced it in the envelope. Then he produced the handkerchief.

"Can you identify this?" he asked, and handed it to the witness.

Swain changed colour a little as he took it.

"I cannot identify it," he said, in a low voice; "but I will say this: when Miss Vaughan found that my wrist was bleeding, she insisted upon tying her handkerchief around it.