The Circular Study | Page 3

a portière at the
further end of the room.
Advancing through the doorway thus indicated, they took one look
about them and stood appalled. Nothing in their experience (and they
had both experienced much) had prepared them for the thrilling, the
solemn nature of what they were here called upon to contemplate.
Shall I attempt its description?
A room small and of circular shape, hung with strange tapestries
relieved here and there by priceless curios, and lit, although it was still
daylight, by a jet of rose-colored light concentrated, not on the rows
and rows of books around the lower portion of the room, or on the one
great picture which at another time might have drawn the eye and held
the attention, but on the upturned face of a man lying on a bearskin rug
with a dagger in his heart and on his breast a cross whose golden lines,
sharply outlined against his long, dark, swathing garment, gave him the
appearance of a saint prepared in some holy place for burial, save that
the dagger spoke of violent death, and his face of an anguish for which
Mr. Gryce, notwithstanding his lifelong experience, found no name, so
little did it answer to a sensation of fear, pain, or surprise, or any of the
emotions usually visible on the countenances of such as have fallen
under the unexpected stroke of an assassin.
CHAPTER II.
MYSTERIES.
A moment of indecision, of awe even, elapsed before Mr. Gryce
recovered himself. The dim light, the awesome silence, the unexpected
surroundings recalling a romantic age, the motionless figure of him
who so lately had been the master of the house, lying outstretched as
for the tomb, with the sacred symbol on his breast offering such violent
contradiction to the earthly passion which had driven the dagger home,
were enough to move even the tried spirit of this old officer of the law
and confuse a mind which, in the years of his long connection with the

force, had had many serious problems to work upon, but never one just
like this.
It was only for a moment, though. Before the man behind him had
given utterance to his own bewilderment and surprise, Mr. Gryce had
passed in and taken his stand by the prostrate figure.
That it was that of a man who had long since ceased to breathe he could
not for a moment doubt; yet his first act was to make sure of the fact by
laying his hand on the pulse and examining the eyes, whose expression
of reproach was such that he had to call up all his professional
sangfroid to meet them.
He found the body still warm, but dead beyond all question, and, once
convinced of this, he forbore to draw the dagger from the wound,
though he did not fail to give it the most careful attention before
turning his eyes elsewhere. It was no ordinary weapon. It was a curio
from some oriental shop. This in itself seemed to point to suicide, but
the direction in which the blade had entered the body and the position
of the wound were not such as would be looked for in a case of
self-murder.
The other clews were few. Though the scene had been one of
bloodshed and death, the undoubted result of a sudden and fierce attack,
there were no signs of struggle to be found in the well-ordered
apartment. Beyond a few rose leaves scattered on the floor, the room
was a scene of peace and quiet luxury. Even the large table which
occupied the centre of the room and near which the master of the house
had been standing when struck gave no token of the tragedy which had
been enacted at its side. That is, not at first glance; for though its large
top was covered with articles of use and ornament, they all stood
undisturbed and presumably in place, as if the shock which had laid
their owner low had failed to be communicated to his belongings.
The contents of the table were various. Only a man of complex tastes
and attainments could have collected and arranged in one small
compass pipes, pens, portraits, weights, measures, Roman lamps,
Venetian glass, rare porcelains, medals, rough metal work, manuscript,

a scroll of music, a pot of growing flowers, and--and--(this seemed
oddest of all) a row of electric buttons, which Mr. Gryce no sooner
touched than the light which had been burning redly in the cage of
fretted ironwork overhead changed in a twinkling to a greenish glare,
filling the room with such ghastly tints that Mr. Gryce sought in haste
another button, and, pressing it, was glad to see a mild white radiance
take the place of the sickly hue which had added its own horror