“This man has been dead for several hours, major,” he continued. “Death was probably instantaneous, as this dagger is buried to the hilt in his heart.” He tapped the hilt of the weapon with one of his fingers, and looked up at Strange. “Is this man supposed to have been murdered by the ‘invisible monster’ also?” he asked sarcastically.
“So you’ve heard about the ‘invisible monster’,” returned Strange, non-committally.
“Detective Frank, who was guarding the bodies on the pavement, told us some wild tale about an invisible murderer,” remarked Dobson, with a quizzical uplift of his brows. Then, failing to draw an explanation from the sergeant, he asked: “Have you made any arrests?”
“I have not,” replied Strange, then gave a rapid account of the measures he had taken to prevent the murderer’s escape.
Dobson nodded his approval.
“Now, tell me all you know about these mysterious deaths,” he suggested, and Strange, nothing loath, gave a brief though vivid recital of all the known facts in the case.
“This third murder,” he said in conclusion, “instead of complicating matters, seems to make the going a little easier. In the dagger, with which this man was killed, we have something tangible, anyway. But as for Max Berjet and Dr. Sprague—.”
“Dr. Rane,” interrupted Peret from the depths of a morris chair into which he had dropped, “will you venture an opinion as to how Berjet and Sprague met their deaths?”
“It is impossible to reply with any degree of certainty until after the autopsy,” answered the coroner: “but offhand I should say that they were either asphyxiated or poisoned.”
Peret scowled at the coroner and relapsed into silence.