The Tragedy of Z Read Online Free PDF

an inquiring way. And just above the edge of the desk against which he sat so closely, in the center and to the right of the pearly buttons of his shirt, there was a stain, a spread stain, out of the heart of which protruded the haft of a slender paper-knife. Blood, I thought dully; it really looked like red ink that had crusted.… And then a fussy little man, whom I discovered later to be Dr. Bull, the medical examiner of Tilden County, slipped into my line of vision and blotted out the corpse. I sighed and shook my head clear of a sudden vertigo. I felt father’s powerful grip on my elbow, and I stiffened, fighting for self-control.
    Voices were saying things. I looked up into the eyes of a very young man. Father was booming something—I caught the name “Hume”—and realized that he was presenting the district attorney of the county, the gentleman who—good heavens! I thought—who was to have been the dead man’s political opponent in the coming campaign.… John Hume was tall, almost as tall as Jeremy—where was Jeremy? I wondered—and he had very beautiful and intelligent dark eyes. The guilty little thought that had been trying to creep into my consciousness curled up and died of shame. Not this man. And that lean, hungry look about him. Hunger for … what? Power? Truth?
    â€œHullo, Miss Thumm,” he said crisply; he had a deep practiced voice. “The Inspector tells me you’re something of a detective yourself. You’re sure you want to stay?”
    â€œQuite sure,” I said in the most careless tone I could muster. But my lips were dry, the words came out cracked, and his eyes grew keen.
    â€œOh, very well.” He shrugged. “Do you want to examine the body, Inspector?”
    â€œYour bone-setter’ll tell you more than I can. Examine the duds?”
    â€œThere’s nothing on the body of interest.”
    â€œHe wasn’t expecting a woman,” muttered father. “Not that bird. With his lips, and those sissy fingernails, he wouldn’t receive a dame in shirt-sleeves.… Is he married, Hume?
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGirl-friend?”
    â€œPluralize that, Inspector, and you’ll be nearer the truth. Bad actor, and I have no doubt there’s many a woman who would have liked to jab a knife into him.”
    â€œGot anyone special in mind?”
    Their eyes met. “No,” said John Hume, and turned away. He beckoned sharply, and a squat, burly, flop-eared man slouched across the room toward us. The district attorney introduced him as Chief Kenyon, of the local police department. The man had the gelatinous eyes of a fish; I disliked him immediately. And I fancied I saw malevolence in his glance at father’s broad back.
    The fussy little man, Dr. Bull, who had been engaged in scribbling with an enormous fountain-pen on an official slip of paper, straightened up and tucked the pen away in his pocket.
    â€œWell, Doc?” demanded Kenyon. “What’s the verdict?”
    â€œMurder,” said Dr. Bull briskly. “No question in my mind. Everything points that way, and away from suicide. Aside from all other considerations, the wounds that caused death simply couldn’t have been self-inflicted.”
    â€œThere was more than one blow, then?” asked father.
    â€œYes. Fawcett was stabbed in the chest twice. Both wounds bled profusely, as you see. But the first, while a serious wound, didn’t quite send him west, and the murderer made sure by jabbing again.”
    He flicked his finger toward the letter-knife which had been buried in the dead man’s breast. He had removed it from its bed in the victim’s body, and it lay on the desk, dull with a clotted crimson coating on its thin blade. A detective picked it up gingerly and began to dust it with a grayish powder.
    â€œYou’re sure,” snapped John Hume, “that it couldn’t possibly have been