The doctor was again examining the partly rigid body. He opened one hand; it held a cake of soap. There was a grease mark on the hand. Delamater supplied the explanation. "He touched some grease on the old car I was using," he said. "Must have gone directly to wash it off. See--there is water spilled on the floor." Water had indeed been splashed on the tile floor of the bath room; a pool of it still remained about the heavy, foreign-looking shoes of the dead man. Something in it caught Delamater's eye. He leaned down to pick up three pellets of metal, like small shot, round and shining. "I'll keep these," he said, "though the man was never killed with shot as small as that." "We shall have to wait for the autopsy report," said the Chief crisply; "that may give the cause of death. Was there anyone in the room--did you enter it with him last night, Del?" "No," said the operative; "he was very much agitated when we got here--dismissed me rather curtly at the door. He was quite upset about something--spoke English none too well and said something about a warning and damned our Secret Service as inefficient." "A warning!" said the Chief. The dead man's brief case was on the bed. He crossed to it and undid the straps; the topmost paper told the reason for the man's disquiet. It showed the familiar, staring eye. And beneath the eye was a warning: this man was to die if he did not leave Washington at once. The Chief turned to the hotel manager. "Was the door locked?" "Yes." "But it is a spring lock. Someone could have gone out and closed it after him." "Not this time. The dead-bolt was thrown. It takes a key to do that from the outside or this thumb-turn on the inside." The hotel man demonstrated the action of the heavy bolt. "Then, with a duplicate key, a man could have left this room and locked the door behind him." "Absolutely not. The floor-clerk was on duty all night. I have questioned her: this room was under her eyes all the time. She saw this man return, saw your man, here"--and he pointed to Delamater--"leave him at the door. There was no person left the room after that." "See about the autopsy, Doctor," the Chief ordered. And to the manager: "Not a thing here must be touched. Admit only Mr. Delamater and no one else unless he vouches for them. "Del," he told the operative, "I'm giving you a chance to make up for last night. Go to it." And Robert Delamater "went to it" with all the thoroughness at his command, and with a total lack of result. * * * * * The autopsy helped not at all. The man was dead; it was apparently a natural death. "Not a scratch nor a mark on him," was the report. But: "... next time it will be you," the note with the staring eye had warned the Secretary of State. The writer of it was taking full credit for the mysterious death.