• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

"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