"You mean," he whispered, "that he's—gone?"
The doctor nodded. The nurse sobbed once. Garth had not noticed how young her face was.
The block where the murdered man had been found was flanked by long rows of similar houses. Its cobblestones, unfriendly to traffic, made it an ideal place for the brutal deception which had been attempted.
Opposite the spot where Brown had been picked up Garth paused and looked curiously across the street. The dreary house line was broken there by a number of basement and first-story shops. His eyes, alert for the unusual, had found it. A basement window displayed intricately patterned rugs, lamps of the Orient, unfamiliar and barbaric jewelry. The fact that he had not noticed the window sooner testified to a significant discretion in its arrangement. It was, he fancied, designed less to attract curiosity than to satisfy it once it was aroused. Probably it was that idea that suggested a fantastic connection between what he had heard at the flat and the hospital and what he saw now. Half derisively he recalled that Oriental women went veiled—customarily secreted their faces behind white veils.
He had intended entering all these shops and houses in search of a witness of the attack on Brown. He determined now to proceed rather more warily. Suppose Brown spying, or about to spy, had been assaulted in one of these basements—for instance, in the Oriental shop which had straightway aroused his interest?
He crossed the street and darted quickly down the steps from one side, so that he was sure he had taken by surprise whoever was in the place. What he saw was sufficient proof of his success, and his special detective sense was immediately impressed by much that was ominous in the shadowed room. The echoes of such an attack as Brown had suffered could have been easily smothered here.
Rugs were draped against the walls or flung at haphazard on the floor. Carved tables supported lacquer work. From a glass case jewelry gleamed with a dull beauty. But it was on the rear of the shop that Garth's eyes rested, while a cold fear grasped him.
A long, low divan sprawled there against a tapestry hanging of a colorful and grotesque design. On this divan, seated cross-legged, was the figure of a man, at first quite motionless, like an image in a somber and guarded temple. He wore a fez, set formally on his head. One hand clasped the sinuous stem of a water pipe.
The round, flaccid, repulsive face defied classification. Garth could not be sure whether it was Egyptian, Turkish, Arabian, or Semitic. He only knew that it was evil and accustomed to perfect control, for he suspected that his rapid entrance had made the concealment of the fez and the alteration of that ritual attitude impossible. In a matter-of-fact tone Garth spoke of examining the rugs and antiques.