“Pm glad you are successful,” answered Barton. “I say, Eliza!”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Would you mind showing me the room up-stairs where poor old Shields was sitting the night before he was found in the snow?”
It had suddenly occurred to Barton—it might have occurred to him before—that this room might be worth examining.
“We ain’t using it now! Ill show you it,” said Eliza, leading the way up-stairs, and pointing to a door.
Barton took hold of the handle.
“Ladies first,” he said, making way for Eliza, with a bow.
“No,” came the child’s voice, from half-way down the stairs; “I won’t come in! They say he walks, I’ve heard noises there at night.”
A cold stuffy smell came out of the darkness of the unused room. Barton struck a match, and, seeing a candle on the table, lit it The room had been left as it was when last it was tenanted. On the table were an empty bottle, two tumblers, and a little saucer stained with dry colors, blue and red, part of Shields’ stock-in-trade. There were, besides, some very sharp needles of bone, of a savage make, which Barton recognized. They were the instruments used for tattooing in the islands of the Southern Seas.
Barton placed the lighted candle beside the saucer, and turned over the needles. Presently his eyes brightened: he chose one out, and examined it closely. It was astonishingly sharp, and was not of bone like the others, but of wood.