Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. On moving cautiously into the room, he saw a piano of polished white wood in a recess, concealed by a white velvet curtain from the door. Before the piano lay a white bearskin; on this, face downward; the body of a woman. She was dressed in black, the one spot of colour in that pale room. But there was another colour--a vivid red, staining the skin. Mulligan touched the body--it was cold and limp. "Dead," said Mulligan. From under the left shoulder-blade trickled a thin stream of blood, and his voice, strong as it was, used as he had been to scenes of terror, faltered in the dead silence of that death-chamber. "Dead! Murdered!" Not a sound. Even the wind had died away. Only the strong man looking down at that still corpse, only the blackness of her dress; the redness of her life-blood soaking into the white bearskin, and all around the wan desolation of that white, mysterious room, Arctic and silent. CHAPTER II ANOTHER MYSTERY Mulligan stared at the dead woman, but beyond touching her to see if life remained, he did not attempt to alter the position of the corpse. For corpse it was. The woman was as dead as a stone, and Mulligan knew his duty too well to take any authority upon himself The inspector was the man to issue orders, and the inspector would be at the head of Achilles Avenue when the clock struck twelve. As this thought passed slowly through the policeman's mind--for the unexpectedness of the tragedy had somewhat dazed him--he heard the midnight chimes. With a sudden start he recovered his wits and wheeled round. In a few minutes he was out of the house, and had closed the door. Only when in the roadway did his brain begin to work at its normal speed. "It's that young gentleman," thought Mulligan. "He said I'd come across a crime sooner than I expected. And the key is his. Mary, be good to us; but he must have killed the poor creature before he joined me. Augh!" He stopped and considered. "But if that's so, what about the singing. She was at the piano, and the song wasn't done when the gentleman joined me. Augh!" At this moment of his reflection, and while he was looking anxiously down the road for the inspector, a man came walking rapidly along, and suddenly emerged from a side-street that ran at right angles to Achilles Avenue. He almost dashed into the arms of Mulligan, who brought up short under a lamp. "Where are ye going?" asked the policeman, rendered suspicious by his recent discovery and by the manifest haste of the man. "Going, confound you!" snapped the man, who seemed to be in a very bad temper. "I'm looking for my motor-car." "For your what?" "Motor-car! Automobile! Can't you understand English? I've lost it. Some one's bolted with the whole kit. Have you seen my car? It's painted yellow picked out with black, and------"