He paused, looked at the coroner as if inviting speech, and then, when only silence answered, continued:
“Let us turn now to the murder of the valet. There is certainly no doubt as to the manner in which he died. He was stabbed to death, and Dr. Rane has expressed the opinion that he has been dead for several hours. Yet, in spite of this, and in spite of the fact that the form of his murder is entirely different from that of Berjet and Sprague, it seems clear that the three murders, as well as the attack on the artist, are closely related to each other.
“Whether or not they are correlated is a matter which only the future can determine: but that they all bear some connection with each other and were committed by the same agency, there seems to be no doubt. The circumstances that surround the several murders speak for themselves. Therefore, in view of the fact that Berjet’s valet was the first of the three men to meet his death, it is my opinion that if you find his murderer you will have found the man or Thing responsible for the other two murders, and for the attack on our friend, Deweese.”
Strange heaved a sigh of profound satisfaction. He was now on familiar ground. Unseen and unknown forces that struck men down, forces that were apparently of some other world, were beyond his depth; but human knife-wielders were his meat. Given something tangible, a clue, or a motive, or even a theory that was not beyond his comprehension, there was no man on the force who could obtain quicker or more satisfactory results than he.
Therefore, while in his own mind, he had already settled on the dagger as the one key to the mystery in sight, it flattered him, in spite of the obviousness of the clue, to have the major’s opinion coincide with his own.
“I agree with you, major,” he cried heartily. “The man that we want most is the man that murdered the valet; and,” he added with a tightening of his jaws, “I’m gonna get him!”
“Wait,” said Sergeant Alington, who had been an interested listener to the major’s summing up of the case. “I have some information to reveal which I think will be of interest to you.”
He cleared his throat, set his glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose, and glanced at several slips of paper he held in his hand.
“Before the bodies of Sprague and Berjet were taken to the morgue, I secured the finger-prints of both of them. I have since photographed a number of prints found on various objects in this room. Among the latter are a set of well-defined prints on the handle of the dagger that killed the valet. The photographs of these prints will not be available for purposes of comparison, of course, until I develop them; but the impressions on the daggerhandle are so clean-cut that they stand out clearly under the developing powder, when a magnifying glass is applied to them. While I cannot speak positively, therefore, I think that I have succeeded in identifying them.”
“Well?” growled Strange, straining forward.