"Then what did you do?"
"I ran downstairs and out to the street, meaning to ask the first man who came along to force Mr Kenealy's door. As luck would have it, the first one was a policeman."
While this conversation went on, Malcolm was watching the girl. She had persistently kept her face pressed to Mrs Sefton's shoulder. But now'she turned suddenly, and cast a swift glance of amber eyes at himself and Nayland Smith. She was a strikingly pretty brunette and appeared to be in a state of terror rather than sorrow.
"The door was forced by the policeman and you found Kenealy," Nayland Smith said. "Tell me—"
"He was dead, sir!"
The dark girl turned and faced Sir Denis.
"So I understand," he said. "Details I'll gather for myself. And now, Mrs Sefton, who is this young lady?"
The girl fixed her strange, but beautiful eyes upon Nayland Smith as Mrs Sefton replied, "It's Miss Rostov, sir, a friend of Mr Kenealy's, who often called. She came to see him ten minutes ago, and the police wouldn't let her go up."
"Miss Rostov," Sir Denis met the fixed regard of the girl's eyes, "how did you know Jack Kenealy was dead?"
"I didn't knowl" she cried. "I didn't know! How could I know?"
"Was he expecting you?"
"Yes. But I was late."
"How long have you known him?"
"For a long time. Three or four months." "When did you see him last?"
"The day before yesterday."
"Where?"
"At the restaurant."
"What restaurant?"
Momentarily, she hesitated, then: "The Cafe Stambul."
"And you haven't seen him or spoken to him since?" "No."
Nayland Smith considered her for a while, and the amber eyes evaded him.
"Very well. Miss Rostov. You have all my sympathy. I'm afraid we shall want you as a witness." He turned to Mrs Sefton. "Please look after her. She musn't leave at present. Just a moment, Forbes."
He went to the street door.
"I'm so sorry, my dear." Mrs Sefton put her arm round the girl, and included Malcolm in the invitation: "Come into my sitting-room and make yourselves comfortable."
Malcolm found himself seated in a small, cosy room, overcrowded with antique furniture, facing Miss Rostov, who reclined upon a couch which might have dated back to Queen Victoria. Mrs Sefton bustled out to "make a nice cup of tea."
The girl's eyes, in which he read fear, were turned upon him.
"I don't know your name," she said softly; she had a slight, unfamiliar accent. "But I feel I can trust you. Why am I to be kept here? Please tell me. Are you of the police?"
"No." Malcolm felt embarrassed. "But I can only tell you what Sir Denis told you — that you'll be required as a witness."
"Sir Denis — who is he?"
"Sir Denis Nayland Smith, a former Commissioner of Scotland Yard."
"Oh! But shall I be allowed to go when he has talked to me again?"
"Of course."
She sighed, stretching out her slim body languorously. She had removed a black coat with a wide astrakhan collar; under it she wore a dark green dress. A striped silk scarf concealed nearly all her hair. Malcolm became uncomfortably conscious of her beauty.
"If I have to go to court," she murmured, "I hope you will come with me. I have, now, no friends in London."
Before he could think of a reply, Nayland Smith came in.
"Come along, Forbes."
Malcolm met a lingering glance of amber eyes and followed Sir Denis from the room. As they went upstairs: "I gave her a chance," Nayland Smith said shortly. "Did she try the glamour treatment?"
Malcolm felt his colour rising. "I rather think," he confessed, "that she did. She's really a beauty, isn't she?"
"All Fu Manchu's women are beauties."
" 'Fu Manchu's women'? You mean, you suspect this girl to be one?"
"We shall see… Hullo, Inspector! I had an appointment with Kenealy tonight, but unfortunately arrived too late… "
Sergeant Kenealy lay on a couch. Evidently a good-looking man in his early thirties, his present appearance made Malcolm shudder. This gruesome shell might be that of one dead, not for less than an hour, but for more than a week. The divisional surgeon, Dr Abel, was examining the body.
"We've ruled out the possibility of homicide, Sir Denis," Inspector Wensley declared. "The window, which overlooks the street, was fastened. The door was locked. I have checked every possibility, and I'll stake my job on it — no one else was in this room when he died."
A fire burned in a small grate, and the room was insufferably hot. Nayland Smith twitched the lobe of his ear, a trick of his when concentrating.
"Poor Kenealy had an enemy. Inspector, who uses strange allies — not necessarily human. You have searched the rooms, furniture closets — wherever any living thing could hide?"
Inspector Wensley looked troubled. "We've searched the place of course, sir. I don't think anything that moved could have escaped us."
"There seems to be a quantity of charred paper on the fire and in the hearth?"
"He had evidently been burning every bit of paper in his possession," the inspector told him. "In fact, we shouldn't have known his identity if West here—" he indicated a plain clothes man talking to the doctor — "hadn't recognised him. I was shocked to learn that he was one of us."
Nayland Smith glanced at Malcolm. "We're in very deep waters." He crossed to the couch; Malcolm followed.
Dr Abel looked up at Sir Denis.
"Are there any marks on his body, Doctor, to suggest that he had been bitten by a reptile, for instance?"
"There are no such marks, sir. I cannot imagine why there should be."
"He was murdered. I'm here to find out how."
"Murdered! I disagree."
"Then what's the diagnosis?" Sir Denis demanded.
Able shook his head angrily. "A sudden seizure of some kind. But look at his colour. Feel the rigidity of the body."
Kenealy's features were of a uniform leaden grey, his limbs stiff as if he had been dead for hours. The features were frozen in an expression of horror.
"Cerebral haemorrhage?" Malcolm suggested.
"My dear sir!" Dr Abel snorted. "Look at his colour — look at his eyes."
"Heart?"
"What kind of heart? Only an autopsy can help us there. But I may add that I never knew a heart case, except angina, where the patient cried out at the moment of the attack. What's more, this muscular rigidity doesn't fit. A powerful electric shock might have accounted for it. But he was sitting in that easy chair when I arrived, and no contact was possible. This strange rigor had already set in. The man might have been struck by lightning… "
Nayland Smith turned away, his expression grim. "Show me what was found on him."
"Here you are. Sir Denis." Detective West drew his attention to a number of objects on a small table, "He must have had some other base he'd been working from. Mrs Sefton says he was often away for two or three days. There isn't a thing here to prove his identity."
"That doesn't surprise me," Nayland Smith said. "I see you have explored his bureau."
"Complete search, sir," Wensley assured him. "Nothing to help."
Sir Dennis glanced over the exhibits. "Where did you find this automatic?"
"Drawer in a bedside cabinet," West told him. "It's fully charged."
"H'm. And what about this?"
He was holding up a disc of some dull metal attached to a thin broken chain.
"That was fastened around his neck," Wensley explained. "I thought it was a religious emblem. We could find no way of unfastening it, so I had the chain filed. The loop was too small to go over his head."