CHAPTER 5

THE BIG FIVE at Scotland Yard filled Dick Martin’s dining-room, waiting for the verdict of the medical man who had been hastily summoned. The doctor came in in a few minutes. “So far as I can tell by a superficial examination,” he said, “he’s been dead for some hours, and was either strangled or his neck was broken.” In spite of his self-control, Dick shivered. He had slept in the room that night, where, behind the polished door, lay that ghastly secret. “There was no sign of a struggle, Martin?” asked one of the o…