On the floor near one end of the sofa lay the lifeless form of the woman. She was clad in a handsome evening dress. Her bare neck and shoulders were covered with blood. Her luxuriant auburn hair was in disorder, matted with blood that had flowed from several gashes in the scalp. The skull had been beaten in with a heavy bludgeon of some kind. She was lying on her left side, with her head nearly touching the baseboard of the wall, from which her right hand appeared to have fallen after a desperate effort to reach it, or to continue doing so. In confirmation of this there was a coarse, angular, irregular scrawl on the wall paper, several words evidently written with a tremulous hand by the woman, and inscribed with the tip of her forefinger dipped in her own life’s blood--a scrawl ending abruptly with a direct downward stroke toward where her right hand was then lying. It was as if she had expired, or lost consciousness, at least, while making a desperate effort to write more, enough to tell in full the tragic story. The several slanting, irregular words were legible, however, and there was no mistaking their fateful significance. They read: “Arthur Gordon did this to get the----” That was all save the last downward stroke left by the falling hand. Was it enough? Was it all that would be required to convict, to send her assassin over the same dark river? These were the first questions that arose in the mind of Nick Carter. CHAPTER II. THE HEADQUARTERS MAN. Nick Carter took in with a few swift glances those important features of the scene already mentioned. Instead of immediately beginning a more careful inspection, however, he turned to the headquarters man and said: “Am I to understand, Phelan, that things are about as you found them?” “Yes. Nothing has been disturbed, Nick, of any importance.” “Was the woman lying in that position?” “Yes. I have not touched the body. I saw that writing on the wall, and----” “One moment,” Nick interposed. “Who discovered the crime?” “A girl who lives in the second flat. She came down about eight o’clock to go out to work, and she saw spots of blood on the hall floor near the door of this flat.” “I noticed them when I entered.” “She tried the door, and found it locked. It has an automatic lock. She then rang repeatedly, being acquainted with Miss Lancey, but she could get no response.” “Does this woman live alone here?” “Yes, so I am told, except when entertaining her friends.” “I see.” “The girl then called her mother, and they hunted for Gilroy, who is on this beat. He entered through the kitchen window, forcing it open, and he then saw what had occurred. I happened to be in the precinct station when he telephoned,” added Phelan, pointing to a telephone on a stand in one corner. “I came here with Kennedy, taking temporary charge of the case, and I soon found evidence enough to warrant sending him to arrest Mr. Gordon.” “You mean that writing on the wall?” “Yes, partly.”