Part 18 (2/2)
”Slightly,” said the inspector ”Na about after jade and rubythe people Kind of a prospecting tramp and adventurer--you know the type
Rather an obnoxious beast, if he's the one I've heard about”
The doctor sought no further coht serve for an epitaph He preferred to jot down certain necessary official entries in his little book, and as the light was bad he moved away toward the altar Meanwhile the inspector remained by the body, outsprawled there in a cri around to find his colleague standing under the gliht
But the doctor's question was quietly put
”Have you any notion what became of the murderer?”
”It's a queer business,” adin to learn so of the capabilities of these people
There must have been three hundred about the platfor up a clue to save ourselves”
”No theory yet?”
”What theory can there be? You see the material as well as I A corpse, a knife, and an eet-aithout a witness”
”Quite so But aren't you forgetting this witness?”
The doctor laid a finger on the ie of the Buddha There it sat behind the taper and the offerings and the veiling vapor of the incense There it sat cross-legged in its niche, with the left hand lying pal over the knee--with the calard of the tradition--a life-size iilt and old rose, whose set and peaceful features had been die
At least so it see a trifle Until he saw it give flaccidly under the doctor's touch And then he saw that the actual ie had been displaced and jammed back into the niche for a support and that this--this was a substitute
”Dead!” he breathed
The doctor dropped the wrist he had been thu
”Dead,” he affirmed rather shakily ”And not only dead, but cold!
Inspector, I'm not a fanciful man, would you say? I'm not one to believe much in deviations from the normal--in aberrations from the positive, eh?--even under the Temple of the Slanted Beam But I'd swear in any court--west of Suez, I mean--I'd take my solemn oath the felloas dead when he climbed to that altar! It's the plain evidence It's as certain as anything I know, if I know anything Dead? He was dead the first of the two! He was obliterated, wiped out, blasted out of existence, _a full five minutes before he ever killed that white chap there on the floor_!”
”Capabilities,” stammered the inspector ”Would you call that suspended animation, now--or what?”
”I'd call it suspended extinction, if there were such a thing inat Moung Poh Sin for a while
”'There are an the doctor
”Twixt East and West,” suggested the inspector
”Quite so And if you doubt ed coat to show the naked, rugged breast beneath; and there, a little to the left, within a space that ht have been covered with a lotus leaf were three smooth, round bullet holes where the late headh the heart--three times