Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/444

 Almost opposite the elevator, across a narrow hall, appeared a lighted door, on which was painted the legend: "John Middlebury, Architect and Landscape Gardener." Above it was a transom tilted half open.

"Give me a leg up," said Astro, and, placing his foot in Thompson's big hand, he raised himself to the height of the lintel and looked in. He stayed there for a few minutes, then dropped to the floor again.

"Well, it's a murder, fast enough," he said to McGraw.

"We'll have to bust down the door, then," said the officer.

"Unless the boy can crawl through the transom."

"No, I can't!" exclaimed the boy. "It's too narrow."

"You try it," said Astro.

"I don't dare to!" the lad whimpered.

McGraw laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Now, then, my son, go to it, and no talk!"

With that, he lifted the lad bodily to a handhold on the lintel. "Hurry up, now, Dennis!" said Thompson gruffly, and the boy struggled through the opening, pulled his legs inside, and dropped to the floor. In a moment he opened the door and stood as white as paper, trembling in horror.

Beyond a counter that shut off the front part of the office, below a large drafting table in the center of the room, the body of a man lay on its back, the arms outstretched on the floor. The eyes were shut, and one hand still held a small black rubber drawing triangle. The counter shut off a view of his feet. He was a man of some thirty years, with black mustache and sparse beard, a handsome picturesque type of slightly foreign appearance.