CHAPTER II.
A PERPLEXING PROBLEM.
Nick Carter had only to enter the hall of the house to see the first signs of the sanguinary conflict of the previous night.
On the wall opposite the dining-room door were spots and streaks of blood, great, irregular streaks and smooches, as if drops and splotches that had spurted upon the wall paper had been rubbed and spread by the garments of persons engaged in a terrific struggle. A rug near by had been kicked into a shapeless heap near the baseboard.
Nick merely glanced at these, then paused at the open door of the dining room, in which the scene was doubly shocking.
The roller shades of both windows had been raised, admitting the morning sunlight.
One lamp of an electric chandelier still was burning. It looked wan and yellow in contrast with the bright light from outside.
“Great guns!” Chick Carter muttered, then at Nick’s elbow. “What a scene of disorder.”
“It’s the limit,” Nick tersely agreed.
“Slaughter pen is right,” added Chick, recalling the remark of the physician.
The scene was, indeed, a shocking one. The table was out of place. Broken glasses from the sideboard strewed the floor. Chairs were overturned and broken. Spots and splashes of blood were everywhere. It stood in a great, partly dry and congealed pool on the floor between the table and the hall door—a pool in which the corpse of a murdered man was lying.