ound. The same thought, no doubt, occurred to
Simmonds, for, after ordering the policeman in the hall to call the
ambulance, he returned and began a careful search of the room, using
his electric torch to illumine every shadowed corner. Godfrey devoted
himself to a similar search; but both were without result. Then
Godfrey made a minute inspection of the injured hand, while
Goldberger looked on with ill-concealed impatience; and finally he
moved toward the door.

"I think I'll be going," he said. "But I'm interested in what your
physician will find, Mr. Coroner."

"He'll find poison, all right," asserted Goldberger, with decision.

"Perhaps he will," admitted Godfrey. "Strange things happen in this
world. Will you be at home to-night, Lester?"

"Yes, I expect to be," I answered.

"You're still at the Marathon?"

"Yes," I said; "suite fourteen."

"Perhaps I'll drop around to see you," he said, and a moment later we
heard the door close behind him as Parks let him out.

"Godfrey's a good man," said Goldberger, "but he's too romantic. He
looks for a mystery in every crime, whereas most crimes are merely
plain, downright brutalities. Take this case. Here's a man kills
himself, and Godfrey wants us to believe that death resulted from a
scratch on the hand. Why, there's no poison on earth would kill a man
as quick as that--for he must have dropped dead before he could get
out of the room to summon help. If it was prussic acid, he swallowed
it. Remember, he wasn't in this room more than fifteen or twenty
minutes, and he was quite dead when Mr. Vantine found him. Men don't
die as easily as all that--not from a scratch on the hand. They don't
die easily at all. It's astonishing how much it takes to kill a man
--how the spirit, or whatever you choose to call it, clings to
life."

"How do you explain the address on the card, Mr. Goldberger?" I
asked.

"My theory is that this fellow really had some business with Mr.
Vantine; probably he wanted to borrow some money, or ask for help;
and then, while he was waiting, he suddenly gave the thing up and
killed himself. The address has no bearing whatever, that I can see,
on the question of suicide. And I'll say this, Mr. Lester, if this
isn't suicide, it's the strangest case I ever had anything to do
with."

"Yes," I agreed, "if it isn't suicide, we come to a blank wall right
away."

"That's it," and Goldberger nodded emphatically. "Here's the
ambulance," he added, as th