annoyed the coroner.

"Why, there's only one way they could come there," Goldberger answered
impatiently. "They were put there by the murderer's fingers as he drew
the cord tight. Do you see anything improbable in that?"

"Only that it seems too good to be true," Godfrey answered, quietly,
and Goldberger, after looking at him a moment, turned away with a
shrug of the shoulders.

"See if you can get the cord loose, Simmonds," he said.

The cord was in the form of a running noose, which had been knotted
to hold it in place after being drawn tight. Although it had not cut
the flesh of the neck, it had sunk deeply into it, and Simmonds worked
at the knot for some moments without result. I suspect his fingers
were not quite as steady as they might have been; but it was evidently
an intricate knot.

"That's a new one on me," he said, at last. "I can't get it loose."

Godfrey bent close above it and looked at it.

"It _is_ a peculiar knot," he agreed. "If you'll permit a suggestion,
Mr. Goldberger, you'll cut the cord and leave the knot as it is. It
may help us to find the man who made it."

"You're right," agreed Goldberger, promptly. "Cut the cord, Simmonds."

Simmonds got out his pocket-knife, opened it and slipped the blade
under the cord, cut it, and pulled it out of the ridge of flesh. He
looked at it a moment, and then handed it to Goldberger. The latter
examined it carefully.

"It's stained with blood, too," he remarked, and passed it on to
Godfrey.

"It looks like curtain-cord," Godfrey said, and made a little tour of
the room. "Ah!" he added, after a moment, from the door opening into
the grounds. "See here!"

He was holding up the end of the cord by which the curtains covering
the upper part of the double doors were controlled.

"You were right, Mr. Coroner," he said, "in thinking that the murderer
entered by this door, for he stopped here and cut off a piece of this
cord before going on into the room."

"Then he must also have stopped to make it into a noose," remarked
Goldberger. "If he did that, he was certainly a cool customer. It's a
wonder his victim didn't hear the noise he made."

"Making a knot isn't a noisy operation," Godfrey pointed out;
"besides, the back of the chair was toward the door. And then, of
course, it's possible his victim _did_ hear him."

"But then he would have jumped from the chair," objected Simmonds.

"Not necessarily. Suppose you were sitting there, and heard a noi