The Riddle of the Purple Emperor

The Coroner cleared his throat.

"Would it be possible to identify the finger-prints, Dr. Verrall?" he asked. For the fraction of a second there was no reply. The doctor hesitated, coughed affectedly, and passed his hand across his mouth. Then:

"Hardly," he responded in a cool, clear voice. "Death had taken place fully an hour or so before. They were evidently long, slender fingers, but that was all that could be gathered."

"H'mn! Slender, eh? A woman's possibly?"

Something like fear came into the doctor's face, and was gone again in a twinkling.

"Certainly not!" he snapped back with a sudden show of vehemence. "They were decidedly those of a man. Besides, there were the marks of a heavy seal ring upon the throat."

A seal ring? Like a flash the thought telegraphed itself over the long, crowded room. Cleek gave a hasty glance backward over his shoulder, and encountered the eye of Sir Edgar Brenton standing near the doorway, with his pale-faced mother beside him.

But other eyes than Cleek's were looking in his direction now. A seal ring? And Sir Edgar's seal had been upon his finger ever since he attained his majority! Every member of the village community recollected his delighted pleasure when that day came round… And there were marks of a seal ring upon the murdered man's throat.

"And where was the revolver found?" the Coroner inquired.

"Close by the dead man's side. He had been dead quite a long time before he was shot, and rigour mortis was already setting in. Whoever fired the shot sent it into a dead man's breast."

"Quite so… And I understand that this is the revolver in question." He held up a little dark metal object that caught the light in one vivid bar along its slim barrel.

Dr. Verrall bowed his head.

"That is so," he said, calmly.

"And do you know to whom it belongs?"

"I cannot say."

There was a hushed silence fraught with a sort of stalking terror that sent every heart beating and every pulse drumming with the awful thought of what might be.

Then:

"That will do for the present, Dr. Verrall. Thank you very much," came in the same clear tones and the crowd heaved a sigh of relief. Who would be the next to be called?

The next to be called proved to be no less a person than Mr. Maverick Narkom himself, who in his concise fashion related for the edification of all present how he and his colleague, Mr. George Headland, of Scotland Yard, had together discovered the body.

"Were there any signs of a struggle?" asked the Coroner, quietly, with a little added show of respect for the dignity of his witness's position.

"Yes," responded Mr. Narkom, excitedly. "Decidedly there were. That was evidenced by the scrap of torn lace found in the dead man's hand, and – "

"Torn lace?" echoed someone involuntarily aloud. Then there was a woman in it, after all!

Mr. Narkom mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and glanced about him.

"Yes, torn lace, gold lace," he reiterated.

"Can you identify it?"

There was a momentary hesitation; meanwhile, Cleek's eyes sought his and Cleek's lips seemed to say: "Be careful. Keep Lady Margaret out of it if you can," and Mr. Narkom responded to that appeal with surprising alacrity.

"I can't say that I can," he said with a slight smile and a shake of the head.

But the Coroner had not done with the subject yet. He held the little fragment of gold high above his head, and then handed it round the table.

"Can any one identify it?" he asked, and all eyes went instantly in its direction. There was no response, only, as Cleek looked, a queer, shocked sort of expression came over Sir Edgar's countenance.

Just as Cleek's face dropped into lines of concentrated thought there came the sound of a voice somewhat high-pitched and clear, with the carefully accurate accent of a foreigner. Cleek whipped round to see the slim, turbaned figure of Gunga Dall standing far back in the room.

"If I may be so permitted," he said in the bland, smooth fashion of his, as the crowd instinctively parted and made way for him to come to the front, "I should like to identify that scrap of gold lace."

Identify it? The hush that came over the room could almost be felt, it was so intense, so absolute.

"We shall be pleased to receive your evidence," broke in the Coroner, shortly; he, like Sir Edgar, had no partiality for "niggers."

There was a sort of polite regret upon Gunga Dall's dark features. He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands, with a little pucker of the lips that bespoke dislike of the task he had in hand.

"I am sorry to say that it is the property of Lady Margaret Cheyne," he said, serenely.

There was a moment of tense silence. You could have heard a pin drop in the ballroom.

Cleek sucked in his breath and stood a moment eyeing the Hindoo. If that were so – but the thought was too utterly horrible to be longer entertained.

There followed the sound of a little cry echoing across the crowded room. Cleek's eyes went in the direction of it, and saw that Lady Brenton had gone dead white, and that her lips were pinched and blue. Sir Edgar, in a sort of mad abandonment, was pushing his way up through the audience, his eyes flashing, his fists clenched, the red blood flaring in his face, and all his virile young manhood up in defence of the woman he loved.

"Say that again, you damned liar, and I'll thrash you within an inch of your precious life!" he shouted. "You can't prove it – you absolutely can't, I say! It isn't her scarf at all – "

"And I say it is!" responded Gunga Dall with an unpleasant little laugh. "Because I happened to have given it to her myself and – "

"You take care what you're saying," returned Sir Edgar in a passion of white heat. "You dare to suggest that you've given her presents."

The Coroner's upraised hand silenced him.

"If you please," he began, "permit Mr. Dall to continue with his evidence without interruption. This is hardly the time or the place, Sir Edgar, for the airing of one's particular – er – differences. You say the scarf belongs to Lady Margaret Cheyne, Mr. Dall?"

"I do. For I myself gave it to her. I met her on the journey over from Boulogne to Folkestone, and I happened to show the scarf to her. She admired it, and on the impulse of the moment I pressed her to accept it. It was one of a pair."

Of a pair, eh? So there was the loophole of escape for Lady Margaret after all. Cleek's head went up.

The coroner leant a little forward in his seat and stared up into the Hindoo's impassive countenance.

"And where, may I ask, is the other?" he inquired.

The blow fell unexpectedly, but with more force in consequence.

For even as Gunga Dall commenced to speak there followed a little commotion at the back of the room. Someone had fainted, there was a hushed call for smelling salts and brandy.

"The other scarf is, or was," said the Hindoo, quietly, "in the possession of Lady Brenton, to whom I gave it last week!"