The Golden Scorpion

g elicited no other evidence than that it was "a fine luxurious concern," the Inspector and Dr. Stuart prepared to set out upon gruesome business.

ong deal table. The spectacle presented, when the covering was removed, was one to have shocked less hardened nerves than those of Stuart and Dunbar; but the duties o

ainly. Hair iron-grey and close cropped and he

spection of the skull; the

is is not the cabman. There is no wound

, covering up the ghastl

It was not Gaston Max who

Dunbar, "s

d clues, in my hands, knowing that they would reach Scotland Yard in the event of his dea

out methods. Anyway I wanted to make sure that the dead man from

e he had no quarrel, and followed by the constable, who relocked the mortuary behind them, they came out into the yard where the ca

se viewed the

si

understand?-no one, unless he has writ

good

f genial appearance, having a dark moustache, a breezy manner and a head of hair resembling a very hard-work

Sergeant Sowe

ar that someone was pull

by?" inquired Dunbar, fixing his

erby exhibit

ferring to the joker who gave so good an imita

id it well. He spoke just like you. I

shaft and a side-glan

t down at

nued, taking out his note-book. "Dr. Stuart has viewed the body a

Max?" cried Sowerby ea

a Prickly Pear. However-here, on the page numbered twenty-six, is a description of the woman known as Mlle. Dorian. I

as standing by the lofty window l

nbar. "The Commissione

y," respon

by seated at the table

eeded to the smoke-lad

at man, suavely satan

urtesy for which

hat we are to enjoy the aid of your special knowledge in the present case. Will you smoke one of my cigarette

ask in what direction my servic

Then from a heap of correspondence he sele

egraphic report received last night. The name of

rt n

recently-a list is appended-and some person or organisation represented by, or associated with, a scorpion. His personal theory not being available-poor fellow, you have heard of his tragic death-I have this morning

fect

will call 'The Scorpion.' Even at the time that the body of the man found by the River Police had not been identified, the presence upon his person of a fragment of gold strongly resembling the tail of a scorpion prompted me t

sh from his ciga

t seem to have justified their titles. I am arranging that you shall be present at the autopsy upon the body of Gaston Max. And now, permit me t

ook his h

theatre, immediately removed to his house in Half Moon Street, and died shortly afterward. Can you giv

vident to Stuart. He opened a drawer. "I have here," he continued, "the piece of cardboard and the enve

interfere with those which no doubt your own people will want to make. I have also submitted both surfaces to a microscopic examinatio

een intelligence against which we find ourselves pitted. In the first place, no one in London, myself and, presumably, 'The Scorpion' excepted, knew at that time that M. Gaston

this"-he laid his finger upon the piece of cardboard-"had any connection with the case of M. Max. But the message was so obviously designed to facilitate the purl

oner complacently ligh

Therefore, Dr. Stuart"-he paused impressively-"if you fail to detect anything suspicious at the post mortem exa

ut Stuart concluded that this sudden activity was directly due, not to the death of M. Max, but to the fact that he (Max) had left behind him some m

n with the matter dated from the night of his meeting with the mysterious cabman in West India Dock road. Or had the curtain first been lifted upon this o

ghtly, master-the

tood still and stared with unseeing eyes across the muddy waters of the Thames. He was thinking of the cowled man who had stood behind the c

mechanism of New Scotland Yard was in motion, its many tentacles seeking-seeking tirelessly-for the girl, whose dark eyes haunted his slee

ter-which did not belong to Stuart in the first place. And she had fail

st-End mortuary? The telephone message which had summoned Dunbar away had been too opportune

more than he was prepared to admit to hi

a was in no other way concerned in the matter. But how had Mlle. Dorian, or the person instructing her, traced the envelope to his study? And why,

his walk. His reflections had led him to a second definite point and he fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a time, seeking a certain brass coin

il he came to the entrance to a tube station. Entering a public telephone call-box, he asked

asked. "Yes! My name is Dr. Keppel Stuart. If Inspector D

short inte

me-"is that

had been really wide-awake. The envelope-you know the one I mean?-the one bearing the number, 30, has been sealed

sure?" as

he envelope with you and you will see that the coins correspond to the impression in the

now at once. It seems to establish

t merely adds t

carried) in his dispensary, which satisfactorily accounted for his failure to find the coin in his waistcoat pocket. He had broken the cork of a flask, and in the absence of another of correct size had man

entering the house he had occasion to visit it. Lying upon a shelf among flasks and bottles was t

ted somnambulis

k sealing-wax adh

e impression upon the wax sealing the mysterious envelope had had a circula

d lain. A stick of black sealing-wax used for sealing medicine was thrust in beside

what he should find, he raised the green baize curtain hanging from the lower shelf, which concealed a sort of

been roughly cut from th

ontents, the wax and the seal-all