With an exclamation of astonishment, Simmonds took the glass and examined the stains; then he handed it to Godfrey, who finally passed it on to me. Looking through it, I saw that Goldberger was right. The stains had been made by human fingers. Most of them were mere smudges, but here and there was one on which faint lines could be dimly traced.
"They seem to be pretty vague," I remarked, passing the glass on to Hinman.
"They're plenty clear enough for our purpose," said Goldberger; "besides they will come out much clearer in photographs. It's lucky this stuff is so smooth and closely-woven," he added, fingering a corner of the robe, "or we wouldn't have got even those. It's as hard and fine as silk."
"How do you suppose those marks came there, Mr. Goldberger?" Godfrey asked, and there was in his tone a polite scepticism which evidently annoyed the coroner.
"Why, there's only one way they could come there," Goldberger answered impatiently. "They were put there by the murderer's fingers as he drew the cord tight. Do you see anything improbable in that?"
"Only that it seems too good to be true," Godfrey answered, quietly, and Goldberger, after looking at him a moment, turned away with a shrug of the shoulders.
"See if you can get the cord loose, Simmonds," he said.
The cord was in the form of a running noose, which had been knotted to hold it in place after being drawn tight. Although it had not cut the flesh of the neck, it had sunk deeply into it, and Simmonds worked at the knot for some moments without result. I suspect his fingers were not quite as steady as they might have been; but it was evidently an intricate knot.
"That's a new one on me," he said, at last. "I can't get it loose."
Godfrey bent close above it and looked at it.