Blake passed him a box of matches. Blake's Moslem servant, Abdul, lay dead of a knife wound. He was lying prone on another man, who lay face upward and who seemed to have been dead for quite a little while before Abdul tripped and fell belly downward on the long, razor-edged knife whose hilt was in the dead man's hand. "But there's another, smaller blade below the hilt, sir," Quorn reported, striking match after match. "It's one o' them there weapons that can be used as sword and dagger. The shorter blade is stuck into the dead guy's stomach; that's what held the knife upright. "Yes, sir, Abdul is stone dead. The long blade passed clean through him--there's three inches of it sticking out of his back. If you should ask me, he couldn't fall that hard. I'd say not. There's something tricky about the way the lamp was smashed--as if it was knocked out of his hand on purpose. Would you care to look, sir, if I hold the horse? It looks to me as if some one jumped on Abdul's back and forced him down on the knife." "Are you positive he's dead?" asked Blake. "As dead as mutton." "Well, the thing to do is to get his body to the Residency. Which shall it be? Will you run on and bring back any of my servants you can find? Or will you wait here while I gallop and get them?" "Go ahead, sir. That's the quickest. Do you pack a gat, sir?" "Do I do what?" "Carry an automatic?" "No, confound it. Here, are you sure both men are dead? Get up behind me then and we'll both go. That's safer." "No, sir, I'll be all right. I'll stay here. You hurry." It was Blake's off night. No human being ever lived who did not make a murderous mistake at one time or another. Blake rammed in his spurs and thundered down the dark lane like a whole troop of cavalry. He made enough noise to drown the shouts of ten men, and his own shouts, to his servants, as he neared the Residency, were enough to deafen them to any noises Quorn made--not that Quorn made any. * * * * * He hardly knew what struck him. He felt a stinging blow from behind and smelled the misty stench of a burlap gag that was thrust into his mouth and wrapped around his head. He struck out blindly with his fists, but hardly felt his wrists seized and pinioned, hardly felt his ankles being tied before he became unconscious from the blow--or perhaps from some drug with which the gag was soaked; it tasted beastly. He had seen nobody; he had heard no sound; he could not even swear that a cry had escaped his own lips. He recovered consciousness within a dark room and lay listening to voices that, for a long time, seemed to be inside his own head. It seemed to him he was home in Philadelphia. His taxicab had been in some sort of smash-up--his first. He felt ashamed, and afraid for his license. After awhile he shook off that feeling, but the voices seemed to come from another world--inhuman, without emotion, hollow.