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244 At last, in response to Garth's efforts, a whimpering came from McDonald's throat. The heap against the wall struggled impotently to rise. Garth recalled the medicines in Taylor's bath room and started down the hall. The unintelligible whimpering increased. Garth went on, aware that the black, huddled figure crawled after him with the sublime and unreasonable courage of a wounded animal.

He snapped on the light and ran to Taylor's bath room where he poured a stimulant into a glass. As he stepped back to the bedroom he faced Taylor's body on which the light shone with peculiar reflections. They gave to the pallid face the quality of a sneer. But it was only in connection with another radical difference at the bed that that illusion arrested Garth and sent a chill racing along his nerves. For on the counterpane, as near the crooked fingers as the revolver lay, now rested a long and ugly kitchen knife.

With a graver fear the detective glanced at the door of the hall. McDonald had dragged himself that far. He raised his trembling hand, stretching it towards the bed in a gesture, it seemed to Garth, of impossible accusation. Then the crouched figure toppled and fell across the threshold while from somewheres beyond the door a high girlish laugh rippled.

Garth sprang forward and knelt by the old man, reluctant to search for what he expected to find. There it was at the back of the coat, a jagged tear