Chapter II

“Pawn to king five and checkmate.” Thornley Colton took a final puff of his cigarette, and dropped it in the ash tray beside the chessboard.

Sydney Thames, the apple cheeked, black-haired secretary to the blind problemist, laughed ruefully. “I almost believe that you could beat me with pawns alone, Thorn,” he declared, looking over the pieces on the board.

“Your whole game is attack,” Colton observed. “You forget all about defence. Another?”

Thames merely nodded, and silently rearranged the pieces on the board. “Three and pawn again?” he asked.

“Yes, if you----” The ringing telephone-bell on the desk broke in, and Sydney rose to answer it. He returned almost on the run.

“It’s Captain Richards, at the Wanderers’ Club,” he began, breathlessly. “He wants you at once. He said something about a murder, and the eye of some seven devils of sin, as near as I could understand.”

Thornley Colton’s mobile face, whose paleness was strikingly accentuated by the great blue circles of the tortoise-rimmed library glasses that shielded his sightless eyes from all glares, lighted up with interest. “Is he still on the wire?” He rose as he asked the question.

Thames shook his head. “He blurted out the message and rang right off. He seemed positive you’d come.”

A faint smile came to Thornley Colton’s lips. “I guess he knew that a single breath from the Orient would interest me.” He touched the call-button on the desk that would summon the big black automobile instantly, at any hour of the day or night. “I hadn’t any idea Captain Richards had returned. I haven’t seen him for years.” The smile left his face. “My fingers have been itching to see those wonderful Seven Devils I’ve heard so much about.”

“Your interest in things Chinese is beyond me,” confessed Sydney, as he followed the blind man out of the room and down the stairs.

“You were in college the last four years I spent in China, Sydney.” Colton spoke as the chauffeur closed the tonneau-door of the touring car, and threw in the gears. “The lure of the East has never gotten out of my veins. To a man who can see, China must be wonderful. To me it is marvellous. Old, satiated of every human emotion before we discovered emotion; a view-point as incomprehensible as the hereafter itself; a character that cannot be visualized--why, Sydney, to men of eyes, the lure of China is the lure of a beautiful picture. To me it is the lure of the unattainable.”

“Something like the mystery of woman?” asked Sydney Thames, seriously.

“Not at all.” The slim cane waved an impatient gesture over the side of the car. “The so-called mystery of woman is her constantly shifting view-point dependent on outside influences; the mystery of the Chinese is his undeviating view-point.”

“Too deep for me,” laughed Thames; then he swung open the door as the car stopped before the great Gothic door-way of the Wanderers’ Club.

The mantle of tragedy hung heavily over the luxurious, exclusive interior of the famous club as they entered. In the main lounging-room a small group of members talked in hushed whispers, and their nervous starts at each sound belied the reputations most of them had gained as travellers in countries where danger lurked constantly. The servitors, usually alert, swift to receive and execute an order, moved with lagging footsteps. Thornley Colton recognised the atmosphere of uneasiness immediately, and a cynical smile flashed across his thin lips as he understood the cause. The Wanderers, rich seekers of excitement and danger in foreign countries, hard-headed, with nerves of steel when face to face with violent death, had fallen under the spell of the uncanny, the supernatural.

The chief steward, from his vantage-point at the head of the stairs, spied them and hurried down.

“It’s--they’re upstairs, sir.” A scared note was in his voice. “The physician has just this minute arrived. The police haven’t been told. Captain Richards thought maybe---- It’s terrible, sir.”

“Very, Peters,” nodded Colton, absently, as he followed the man up the broad staircase, and to himself he muttered, “Lucky the police haven’t had a chance to bungle it. Very, very lucky.”

The instant they opened the door Captain Richards bounded across the floor to meet them. “Thank God you came, Mr. Colton!” he cried, shaking the hand of the blind man with more than heartiness.

“Who was it?” asked Colton.

“Meynerd. The doctor’s trying to find the cause of death now.” He nodded his head toward the broad leather couch against the wall, with its grim occupant, and the physician bending over it.

Colton asked a dozen crisp, terse questions. The answers he got told him the whole story. The captain introduced him to every one in the room, and Colton shook their hands, even to the obsequious Japanese servant, who stood patiently awaiting orders, near the wall.

The doctor finished his examination and straightened up. “Heart-failure,” he announced. “Brought on by alcoholic excesses, I should judge, and probably superinduced by excitement.”

“Strange that the hand of God should have descended at the exact moment chosen by a thief to steal the pearl,” remarked Colton quietly.

“You don’t think it’s murder?” There was a queer chokiness in Captain Richards’s voice.

“_Yes!_” Colton shot out the word as he stood in the centre of the room, turning his head slowly, as though his sightless eyes were trying to surprise some expression of guilt on the white faces of the men. Wilson’s hands gripped his chair-arms so tightly that the knuckles cracked. Joslyn stretched an arm toward the glass, with its green-tinged ice on the table, but withdrew it quickly, to let his hands fall on his knees. The Japanese servant’s foot shifted nervously over a small wad of cotton that had fallen from his hands, minutes before. Only the Chinese was unmoved.

“Neither the gods nor the devils murder,” he said. “They kill.”

The blind man nodded toward him, slowly. “True,” he answered, and his voice was serious. “But when the killing is done by human instruments, the law calls it murder.”

“You are of the West,” shrugged the Mongolian.

“But the whole thing is impossible!” There seemed almost a whine of incredulous protest in Captain Richards’s voice.

“Does the impossible happen?” Colton’s voice was sharp, curt. “No! But the improbable does! A hundred times a day! Every time a perfect match fails to strike an improbable thing has happened. Because that thing on the table hypnotized your eyes into waking the superstition that is the mental appendix handed down through the thousand centuries, you say that _it_ is impossible. What is impossible? Meynerd’s death? The fact that he was killed? My statement that he was murdered? Or do you mean that each one of you is so wise that no one could have deceived you? Yet the eye is gone! And even if the devils had killed Meynerd, would they have stolen their own eye?”

Each crisp sentence fairly sizzled as he shot it out. The hand that held his slim, hollow cane, that gave its messages to his super-sensitive finger-tips, waved up and down for emphasis, touching blindly the table, the golden devils, and some part of each man’s body as he paced back and forth across the floor.

“A man can’t give another man heart-failure to kill him,” declared the physician, pompously.

“Can’t!” The smile on the problemist’s face was sardonic as he faced the doctor. “Then no murder was ever committed. If a man’s heart didn’t fail he’d keep right on living. What caused Meynerd’s heart to fail is the thing we’ve got to find out. Do you know how Meynerd fell?”

“No, immaterial details----”

“Very material!” The blind man interrupted brusquely. “Every diagnostician should be a detective, and I might mention right here that one of the greatest surgeons and diagnosticians in America is a blind man. You should know that a man standing as Meynerd stood, suddenly stricken with heart-disease, would fall flat on his back. Yet he fell on his knees, his body bent forward so that his forehead touched the ground for an instant before it relaxed.”

“By Jove--I supposed----” the physician sputtered his chagrin. Then his face brightened. “Some caustic, causing a griping in the intestines.”

“Exactly.” The sharpness had gone from the detective’s voice now, and he spoke in his old calm, even tone.

“He drank a toast!” Even as he spoke, the doctor’s foot crunched a bit of the broken glass on the floor.

“You’d have to analyze the rug,” reminded Colton. “And who had the chance?” He looked around inquiringly.

“Wilson poured his drink!” The words came in a gasp from Joslyn.

Wilson sprang to his feet with an oath. “Are you accusing me of killing him?” He snarled the question, but his face was white.

“Meynerd had gulped his drink even before Ching Li Chu entered,” suddenly remembered Captain Richards. “There was only a few drops of the melted ice-water in his glass when he stood before the Seven Devils.”

“There are poisons that act after minutes have passed.” The even, monotonous voice of the Chinese broke in.

“Do you think the poisoner knew to the second when Meynerd’s drunken folly would take the turn it did?” demanded Colton; and each man in the room recognised the menace in his tone.

A gleam flashed to the eyes of the Mongolian for an instant, then vanished. “The instruments of the gods and the devils cannot fail,” he answered, quietly.

“No poison known could be timed like that,” declared Colton, positively.

“Right!” growled Wilson, as he resumed his seat and darted a glance of new-born hatred across the room toward the man who had virtually accused him of the murder.

Again came silence as the blind man stood in the centre of the room, alternately brushing the rug where lay the untouched pieces of the broken high-ball glass, and swishing at his trouser-leg. Across his high, white forehead, and at his eye-corners behind the round, blue glasses, innumerable fine lines deepened as his wonderful brain worked: visualizing each object in the room, every detail in the picture, every action that must have taken place at the instant of hopeless confusion when Meynerd had pitched forward on the floor.

Immovable, the men watched, each tense for the first word or movement to break the suspense. Sydney Thames sat in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the devils of gold. Ever since he had entered the room the thing on the table had held him fascinated. More sinister, more fiendish than ever, without its single eye of pearl, the empty eye socket seemed to glare at him as though it gloated over the repugnant fascination it exerted. Sydney had heard the captain’s story; in his mind’s eye he could picture the toast, the sneers, the fall. _Had_ the devils killed Meynerd?--as the Chinese had said they would. Then his eyes narrowed slightly as they went to the Mongolian, whose impassive face showed nothing of the thoughts behind the bright, slit eyes. He had said that death would follow. He was a Chinese--of a race to whom a life means nothing; a race of mystery. Then his eyes went to the Jap servant who stood against the wall, patiently waiting permission to leave the room; then, at the two scowling men, who carefully avoided each other’s glances as they stared straight ahead of them--at nothing. Wilson had poured the drink. Why had Joslyn been so quick to tell the fact?

Suddenly the swishing taps of the blind man’s cane ceased; the lines across his forehead and at his eye-corners vanished. “There is one way.” He spoke apparently to himself. “Only one way.”

He crossed the room to the couch where the dead man lay, his face covered with a handkerchief. He pulled aside the coat, and unloosed a button of the thin silk shirt. From his vest-pocket he took a small rubber band, and the watching men saw him put it around the middle finger of his right hand, until the black rubber strands were deep sunken in the flesh. Then, gingerly, as though he were testing the heat of a red-hot stove, he opened the shirt, and with the tourniqueted finger gently touched the skin of Meynerd. Slowly, very slowly, the finger moved over the cold flesh of the dead man, then stopped.

“See, doctor!” He held the banded finger aloft. The physician’s ejaculation of amazement was echoed by every other man in the room, but the unemotional Chinese and the well-trained servant. On the tip of the blind man’s finger was a drop of blood!

“And see here!” His fingers, holding the shirt back, exposed an inch or so of the dead man’s skin. Four men bent their heads to see the small smear of red Colton’s finger had left when it had brushed away the single blood-drop.

“I don’t understand.” There was no doubt of the physician’s bewilderment.

Colton pulled the coat back and stood erect. “The most diabolically primitive of all murderous weapons,” he said. “A poisoned dart.”

“But who? How?” gasped the captain.

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” the blind man said, curtly. With his pocket-knife he carefully cut the strands of the rubber and gently massaged the swollen, blood-congested finger. “A nasty thing to try to locate with delicate finger-tips,” he remarked, casually. “A big chance that the thing hadn’t penetrated its full length, as this one had, and a scratch would have meant another dead man.”

Sydney Thames’s face lost its last vestige of colour as he realized that once again the blind man had toyed with death. A hundred times had Thames seen the problemist--the benefactor who had picked him up on the bank of the English river from which came his only name--take his life in his hands for the sake of solving one of the crime-puzzles he loved; but always before there had been a chance for a fight against men with lesser brains. This time a single scratch of his feeling finger would have killed him instantly, horribly; just as the mocker of the Seven Devils had been killed by the man among them who had coveted the wonderful pearl that had been the eye. And that man----

Joslyn laughed a jerky laugh of nervousness as he turned away and reached out his hand for the glass that had held his absinthe. The ice had melted partially, and there was a half-inch or so of the pale-green liquid showing through the cracked-ice crystals.

“Don’t touch that glass!” The command came, shot-like, from the lips of Colton. He lowered the slim cane that had touched Joslyn’s leg and warned him of the movement.

Joslyn withdrew his hand as if it had suddenly touched fire.

“Why? Wh-y?” he gasped, and his face was pasty white.

“Because I don’t want you to kill yourself!” The blind man’s hand moved to pick up the glass. He held it up and gingerly poked into the ice with his fingers. A grim smile came to his lips, and he dumped the whole thing on the polished top of the mahogany table. Colton’s eight fingers seemed to touch every piece of ice in a single instant, so quickly did they move. Then his fore-finger separated a small pile of curiously-shaped crystals.

“Broken glass!” The exclamation came from the physician.

Colton corroborated him with a nod, and spoke to the still pasty-faced Joslyn. “Some of the smaller particles would surely have gone down your throat.”

Joslyn’s Adam’s apple moved convulsively for a moment. “What is it?” he gulped, finally.

“The broken glass-tube that was used to shoot the poisoned dart; probably not more than two inches long, because of the short distance, and of the thinnest glass, with just this object in view.”

“But how on earth did it get there?” puzzled Captain Richards.

“I’ll bet it wasn’t there five minutes ago!” Wilson cried; and every man in the room remembered Joslyn’s movement toward the glass a few minutes before.

The suave voice of the Chinese cut in. “Might I be informed how one who is blind could know of the glass?” he asked.

“Because the cracked ice made an absolutely perfect hiding-place for fine pieces of broken glass. If dropped on the floor with the bigger, thicker pieces of high-ball glass, the difference would have been immediately noted. I discovered that it had been a frappéd drink when I walked up and down before the table and talked.”

Ching Li Chu rose and bowed gravely toward the golden thing on the table. “Truly, the wisdom of the gods and of the devils is infinite,” he said, in his even voice. “But one man has such a drink. The devils chose him to protect their emissary!”

“Pretty philosophy,” admitted Colton, “made grim by the fact that some one must suffer for being the devils’ tool.” He turned to face the silent Japanese servant, who stood still by the wall. “Tell the steward he can notify the police now, Nesu.”

The sunny Japanese smile that had been missing so long came to the little servitor’s face, and he took a step forward to obey the order.

“What about the pearl?” asked Captain Richards, suddenly. “This man shouldn’t get out until he has been searched. A sixty-five-thousand-dollar gem would tempt ’most any one.”

Colton broke in, amazedly: “Hasn’t the search been made yet?”

“No.” The captain stammered over the monosyllable. “I called you as quickly as I could get to a telephone, after warning every one to stay in the room. I knew you were a member here, and clever at this sort of thing. The police are such asses, you know, and the scandal----”

Again the blind man cut him short. “Because there seemed no possible way by which the jewel could have been stolen--if the stories I heard of the famous Seven Devils, when I was first in China twenty years ago, are true--logically the jewel could be nowhere. Is that it?” he asked.

“Something like that.” The tan on the captain’s cheeks was a deeper tinge than usual.

“The jewel is nowhere.” The Chinese spoke solemnly, earnestly, almost reverently. “The devils have merely hidden it from the sight of mockers. My government will give you one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the Seven Devils without the True Eye.”

“So that’s it!” The captain’s voice was almost a shout; the tone one of a man who has made a great discovery. “_You_ have it! You killed Meynerd to make me sell, eh?” He advanced a step, threateningly.

“The police will attend to that part!” warned the blind man, curtly. “Search Nesu--or go yourself.”

He turned to the table, and his wonderful fingers, each one an eye that could see things the eye of a normal man could not discern, touched the twisted limbs of one of the Seven Devils.

“Come over nearer the light, Nesu,” ordered Captain Richards, and the serious-faced Japanese followed him around the table.

The attention of the silent men in the room was divided between the search of the Jap and Colton’s examination of the thing on the table. At times the blind man’s fingers moved swiftly over the dull-gold surface; at others they seemed to rest for seconds, unmoving, only to resume their journey, slowly. Each man in the room understood, subconsciously, that those marvellous finger-tips would give to the sightless man a mind-picture as perfect as that their eyes had given them--more perfect, perhaps.

“All right!” There was a growl of chagrin in the captain’s voice, as he finished the search. The little Jap pattered out.

“Didn’t find it, eh?” Colton spoke idly, without raising his head. His right forefinger was gently probing into the empty eye-socket. He put his hand in his vest-pocket for an instant, then felt again where the pearl had been, first with one finger, then another.

“Strange,” they heard him murmur. “Strange.” Then he whirled to face them. “The prongs that held the pearl are unbent and unbroken! They are exactly as they were when they gripped the jewel! Yet it is gone!”

“I want to search you, Ching!” There was no mistaking the threat in Captain Richards’s tone this time.

Calmly, disdainfully, the Mongolian raised his arms and stood ready. Richards explored every thread of his clothing. There was no doubt he had done similar things before; not a pin could have escaped him. He stepped back with a muttered curse of bafflement.

“Go through me, too.” It was a snarl from Joslyn; the snarl of a man whose nerves are raw.

No second invitation was needed. Thornley Colton stood leaning against the table, his back toward the golden devils. He idly swished his cane and apparently watched every move. Wilson was searched--and there was nothing.

“The thief who had brains and nerve enough to commit that theft would certainly know enough not to have the pearl in his clothing,” observed Colton, quietly.

“It’s in the room here, then,” growled the loser of the pearl, pacing the floor. “I’ll tear it apart! That jewel was worth sixty-five thousand!”

“You haven’t searched Meynerd’s clothes yet. Every one in the room had a chance to secrete it there--temporarily,” suggested Colton.

The captain’s face went white, and he shuddered as his eyes went to the body of the man whose death had been caused by the thing of gold he had brought into the room. “I’m not a ghoul,” he choked. “The police can attend to that part of it.”

“I think I hear them coming now; the tread is unmistakable.” The problemist took a firmer grip on his cane with the hand that was not in his pocket. “They can mess things as badly as they want to now; I’ve finished.” He took a step toward the door, then turned to face them--the captain, the physician, who had not spoken for minutes, Joslyn, Wilson, and the silent Chinese. “If you’ll bring the Seven Devils to my house at six-thirty this evening, captain, I will show you the pearl, and handcuff the man who killed Meynerd!” Another step, and he halted again. “All of you must come, for only the guilty one will want to stay away. _All_, especially Ching Li Chu!”