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Page 8
The building then was lighted by four barred windows set so high in
the walls that no one could look in from the outside. Blazing sunlight
poured in at the two southerly windows and drew a sharp black pattern
of the bars across the paved floor. Kneeling beside a stretcher, fully
in this path of light, so that he presented a curious striped
appearance, was a man who presently proved to be the divisional
surgeon, and two paces beyond stood a police inspector who was engaged
at the moment of our entrance in making entries in his note-book.
On the stretcher, so covered up that only his face was visible, lay
one whom at first I failed to recognize, for the horribly contorted
features presented a kind of mottled green appearance utterly
indescribable.
Stifling an exclamation of horror, I stared and stared at that ghastly
face, then:
"My God!" I muttered. "Yes! it _is_ Sir Marcus!"
The surgeon stood up and the inspector advanced to meet Gatton, but my
horrified gaze had strayed from the stretcher to a badly damaged and
splintered packing-case, which was the only other object in the
otherwise empty shed. At this I stared as much aghast as I had stared
at the dead man.
The iron bands were broken and twisted and the whole of one side lay
in fragments on the floor; but upon a board which had formed part of
the top I perceived the figure of a cat roughly traced in green paint.
Beyond any shadow of doubt this crate was the same which on the night
before had lain in the garage of the Red House!
CHAPTER III
THE GREEN IMAGE
"Yes," said Gatton, "I was speaking no more than the truth when I told
them that you had special information which I hoped you would place at
my disposal. Some of the particulars were given to me over the 'phone,
you see, and I was glad to find you here when I arrived. I should have
consulted you in any event, and principally about--that."
He pointed to an object which I held in my hand. It was a little green
enamel image; the crouching figure of a woman having a cat's head, a
piece of Egyptian workmanship probably of the fourth century B.C.
Considered in conjunction with the figure painted upon the crate, the
presence of this little image was so amazing a circumstance that from
the moment when it had been placed in my hand I had stood staring at
it almost dazedly.
The divisional surgeon had gone, and only the local officer remained
with Gatton and myself in the building. Sir Marcus Coverly presented
all the frightful appearance of one who has died by asphyxia, and
although of course there would be an autopsy, little doubt existed
respecting the mode of his death. The marks of violence found upon the
body could be accounted for by the fact that the crate had fallen a
distance of thirty feet into the hold, and the surgeon was convinced
that the injuries to the body had all been received after death, death
having taken place in his opinion fully twelve hours before.
"You see," said Gatton, "when the crate broke several things which
presumably were in Sir Marcus' pockets were found lying loose amongst
the wreckage. That cat-woman was one of them."
"Yet it may not have been in any of his pockets at all," said I.
"It _may_ not," agreed Gatton. "But that it was somewhere in the crate
is beyond dispute, I think. Besides this is more than a coincidence."
And he pointed to the painted cat upon the lid of the packing-case. I
had already told him of the episode at the Red House on the previous
night, and now:
"The fates are on our side," I said, "for at least we know where the
crate was despatched from."
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