"And we've got a story here, if we could only read it, that's older than any system."
"But still—to kill a man in a shrine, eh?"
"Yes. He must have had a pretty good reason."
Something in the other's tone made the doctor look up.
"You knew this chap?"
"Slightly," said the inspector. "Name of Cloots. He's been cruising about after jade and ruby mines one time and another, living among the 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 comments on Cloots—that was quite sufficient and might 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 crimson pool, until an exclamation brought him spinning around to find his colleague standing under the glimmer of the lone taper and looking singularly pale, he thought.
But the doctor's question was quietly put.
"Have you any notion what became of the murderer?"