‘From Berlin he went in turn to London, Copenhagen, Brussels, Vienna, Bucharest, and Sofia, spending exactly four days in each place. He then went to Teheran, Persia. He explained to the American Consul there that he had come to Persia to sample at first hand the celebrated wines of Shiraz, and also to continue his search for one Mirah Svari, a mystic he had met in New York, and for whom he had sought vainly all over Europe.
‘On the fourth day in Teheran, he was found dead of an overdose of hashish, in a squalid house in an unsavory quarter.
‘Receiving news of his death, his attorney in New York, acting on previous instructions, opened his will, in which he had left his entire fortune of five million dollars to the producer.
‘But, strange as it may seem, it was found John Morgan never had a brother. What a situation!
68
The Professor Stops a Blunder
At four o’clock Thursday afternoon, Louis Mundy unexpectedly received a telegram requesting him to return home immediately, as his brother was ill.
At eight that evening, he alighted from the plane in Washington. He had not been in the city during the past two months. Hurrying to his suburban home, he found his brother greatly improved. At ten o’clock he set out on a hike through the country, returning at midnight.
These facts were all verified.
Between eleven and twelve o’clock that night, John Skidder was murdered, and the only thing missing from his house was a note for ten thousand dollars signed by Mundy.