The Voice on the Wire | Page 8

are friends, and entrez nous, notorious for
their peccadilloes. The girls must be in the vicious circle, and ably
assisted. But there is one thing I forgot to tell you, which you forgot to
ask."
"And this is?"
"How they died. It was by some curious method of sudden arterial
stoppage. Old as they were, some fiendish trick was employed so
skilfully that the result was actual heart failure. There was no trace of
drugs in lungs or blood. On each man's breast, beneath the sternum
bone I found a dull, barely discernible bruise mark, which I later
removed by a simple massage of the spot!"
Shirley closed his eyes, and passed his hand over his own chest --along
the armpits--behind his ears--he seemed to be mentally enumerating
some list of nerve centers. The physician observed him curiously.
"I have it, doctor! The sen-si-yao!"
"What do you mean?"
"The most powerful and secret of all the death-strokes of the Japanese

art of jiu-jitsu fighting. I paid two thousand dollars to learn the course
from a visiting instructor when I was in college. It was worth it for this
one occasion."
Shirley arose to his feet, and approached the other, touching his
shoulder.
"Stand up, if you please. Let me ask if this was the location of the
mark?"
The physician, interested in this new professional phase, readily obeyed.
One quick movement of Shirley's muscular hand, the thumb oddly
twisted and stiffened, and a sudden jab in the doctor's abdomen made
that gentleman gasp with pain. Shirley's expression was triumphant, but
the professor regarded him with an expression of terror.
"Oh! Ugh!--What-did-you-do-to me?" he murmured thickly, when he
was at last able to speak.
"Merely demonstrated the beginning of the death punch which I named.
That pressure if continued for half a minute would have been fatal."
"I wish you would teach me that," was the physician's natural request,
as he nodded with a wry face.
"Impossible, my dear sir, for I learned it, according to the Oriental
custom under the most sacred obligations of secrecy. One must advance
through the whole course, by initiatory degrees, before learning the
final mysteries of the samurais. Now, we have a working hypothesis.
The girls could never have accomplished this. One man and one alone
must have killed the three, although doubtless with confederates.
Yamashino assured me that there were only six men in this country
who knew it beside myself. We must find an Orientalist!"
Shirley paced the floor, but his meditations were interrupted by the
arrival of the Coroner and his physician. Van Cleft hurried into the
room with them, to present the doctor, who exchanged a formal
greeting with the men he had met twice before that week.

"A sad affair, Professor," observed the Coroner nervously, drinking in
with profound respect the magnificent surroundings which symbolized
the great wealth of which he secretly hoped to gain a tithing. "I trust
that, as usual, in such cases, I may suggest an undertaker?"
"Why--talk about that at once, sir?" asked Howard with a shudder.
The physician, familiar with the subtleties of coroners, gently placed an
arm about the young man's shoulder. He nodded, understandingly, to
the Coroner, as he turned toward Shirley.
"I must be going now," the latter interposed. "Just a word with you,
Howard, that I may send a message to your mother and sister."
The physician led away the two officials as Shirley continued: "I must
go to see Cronin--deserted there like a run-over mongrel on the street.
Can I leave this house by the rear, so that none shall know of my
assistance in the case, or follow me to the hospital? If you can secure an
old hat and coat, I will leave my own, with my stick, to get them some
other time."
"I will get some from the butler, if you wait just a moment. You can
leave by the rear yard, if you don't mind climbing a high board fence."
Van Cleft hurried downstairs, in a few minutes, bearing a
weather-beaten overcoat and an English cap, which Shirley drew down
over his ears. With the coat on, he looked very unlike the well-groomed
club man who had entered. Unseen by Van Cleft he shifted an
automatic revolver into the coat pocket from the discarded garment.
"Now, Mr. Shirley, come this way. Follow the rear area-way, across to
the next yard, where after another climb you find a vacant lot where the
Schuylers are preparing to erect their new city house. Will you attend to
everything?"
"Everything. I'll start sooner than you expect."
Truly he did! For no sooner had he descended the second fence into the

empty lot than a stinging blow sent him at full length on the rocky
ground, where the excavations were already being started.