The doctor was again examining the partly rigid body. He opened one hand; it held a cake of soap. There was a grease mark on the hand.
Delamater supplied the explanation. “He touched some grease on the old car I was using,” he said. “Must have gone directly to wash it off. See—there is water spilled on the floor.”
Water had indeed been splashed on the tile floor of the bath room; a pool of it still remained about the heavy, foreign-looking shoes of the dead man.
Something in it caught Delamater’s eye. He leaned down to pick up three pellets of metal, like small shot, round and shining.
“I’ll keep these,” he said, “though the man was never killed with shot as small as that.”
“We shall have to wait for the autopsy report,” said the Chief crisply; “that may give the cause of death. Was there anyone in the room—did you enter it with him last night, Del?”
“No,” said the operative; “he was very much agitated when we got here—dismissed me rather curtly at the door. He was quite upset about something—spoke English none too well and said something about a warning and damned our Secret Service as inefficient.”
“A warning!” said the Chief. The dead man’s brief case was on the bed. He crossed to it and undid the straps; the topmost paper told the reason for the man’s disquiet. It showed the familiar, staring eye. And beneath the eye was a warning: this man was to die if he did not leave Washington at once.
The Chief turned to the hotel manager. “Was the door locked?”