CHAPTER II
THE FIRST TRAGEDY
It needed but a glance to tell me that the man was dead. There couldbe no life in that livid face, in those glassy eyes.
"Don't touch him," I said, for Vantine had started forward. "It's toolate."
I drew him back, and we stood for a moment shaken as one always is bysudden and unexpected contact with death.
"Who is he?" I asked, at last.
"I don't know," answered Vantine hoarsely. "I never saw him before."Then he strode to the bell and rang it violently. "Parks," he went onsternly, as that worthy appeared at the door, "what has been going onin here?"
"Going on, sir?" repeated Parks, with a look of amazement, not onlyat the words, but at the tone in which they were uttered. "I'm sure Idon't know what--"
Then his glance fell upon the huddled body, and he stopped short, hiseyes staring, his mouth open.
"Well," said his master, sharply. "Who is he? What is he doing here?"
"Why--why," stammered Parks, thickly, "that's the man who was waitingto see you, sir."
"You mean he has been killed in this house?" demanded Vantine.
"He was certainly alive when he came in, sir," said Parks, recoveringsomething of his self-possession. "Maybe he was just looking for aquiet place where he could kill himself. He seemed kind of excited."
"Of course," agreed Vantine, with a sigh of relief, "that's theexplanation. Only I wish he had chosen some place else. I suppose weshall have to call the police, Lester?"
"Yes," I said, "and the coroner. Suppose you leave it to me. We'lllock up this room, and nobody must leave the house until the policearrive."
"Very well," assented Vantine, visibly relieved, "I'll see to that,"and he hastened away, while I went to the 'phone, called up policeheadquarters, and told briefly what had happened.
Twenty minutes later, there was a ring at the bell, and Parks openedthe door and admitted four men.
"Why, hello, Simmonds," I said, recognising in the first one thedetective-sergeant who had assisted in clearing up the Marathonmystery. And back of him was Coroner Goldberger, whom I had met intwo previous cases; while the third countenance, looking at me with aquizzical smile, was that of Jim Godfrey, the _Record's_ starreporter. The fourth man was a policeman in uniform, who, at a wordfrom Simmonds, took his station at the door.
"Yes," said Godfrey, as we shook hands, "I happened to be talking toSimmonds when the call came in, and I thought I might as well comealong. What is it?"
"Just a suicide, I think," and I unlocked the door into the roomwhere the dead man lay.
Simmonds, Goldberger and Godfrey stepped inside. I followed andclosed the door.
"Nothing has been disturbed," I said. "No one has touched the body."
Simmonds nodded, and glanced inquiringly about the room; butGodfrey's eyes, I noticed, were on the face of the dead man.Goldberger dropped to his knees beside the body, looked into the eyesand touched his fingers to the left wrist. Then he stood erect againand looked down at the body, and as I followed his gaze, I noted itsattitude more accurately than I had done in the first shock ofdiscovering it.
It was lying on its right side, half on its stomach, with its rightarm doubled under it, and its left hand clutching at the floor aboveits head. The knees were drawn up as though in a convulsion, and theface was horribly contorted, with a sort of purple tinge under theskin, as though the blood had been suddenly congealed. The eyes werewide open, and their glassy stare added not a little to the apparentterror and suffering of the face. It was not a pleasant sight, andafter a moment, I turned my eyes away with a shiver of repugnance.
The coroner glanced at Simmonds.
"Not much question as to the cause," he said. "Poison of course."
"Of course," nodded Simmonds.
"But what kind?" asked Godfrey.
"It will take a post-mortem to tell that," and Goldberger bent foranother close look at the distorted face. "I'm free to admit thesymptoms aren't the usual ones."
Godfrey shrugged his shoulders.
"I should say not," he agreed, and turned away to an inspection ofthe room.
"What can you tell us about it, Mr. Lester?" Goldberger questioned.
I told all I knew--how Parks had announced a man's arrival, howVantine and I had come downstairs together, how Vantine had calledme, and finally how Parks had identified the body as that of thestrange caller.
"Have you any theory about it?" Goldberger asked.
"Only that the call was merely a pretext--that what the man wasreally looking for was a place where he could kill himselfunobserved."
"How long a time elapsed after Parks announced the man before you andMr. Vantine came downstairs?"
"Half an hour, perhaps."
Goldberger nodded.
"Let's have Parks in," he said.
I opened the door and called to Parks, who was sitting on the bottomstep of the stair.
Goldberger looked him over carefully as he stepped into the room; butthere could be no two opinions about Parks. He had been with Vantinefor eight or ten years, and the earmarks of the competent andfaithful servant were apparent all over him.
"Do you know this man?" Goldberger asked, with a gesture toward thebody.
"No, sir," said Parks. "I never saw him till about an hour ago, whenRogers called me downstairs and said there was a man to see Mr.Vantine."
"Who is Rogers?"
"He's the footman, sir. He answered the door when the man rang."
"Well, and then what happened?"
"I took his card up to Mr. Vantine, sir."
"Did Mr. Vantine know him?"
"No, sir; he wanted to know what he wanted."
"What _did_ he want?"
"I don't know, sir; he couldn't speak English hardly at all--he wasFrench, I think."
Goldberger looked down at the body again and nodded.
"Go ahead," he said.
"And he was so excited," Parks added, "that he couldn't remember whatlittle English he did know."
"What made you think he was excited?"
"The way he stuttered, and the way his eyes glinted. That's whatmakes me think he just come in here to kill hisself quiet like--Ishouldn't be surprised if you found that he'd escaped fromsomewhere. I had a notion to put him out without bothering Mr.Vantine--I wish now I had--but I took his card up, and Mr. Vantinesaid for him to wait; so I come downstairs again, and showed the manin here, and said Mr. Vantine would see him presently, and thenRogers and me went back to our lunch and we sat there eating till thebell rang, and I came in and found Mr. Vantine here."
"Do you mean to say that you and Rogers went away and left thisstranger here by himself?"
"The servants' dining-room is right at the end of the hall, sir. Weleft the door open so that we could see right along the hall, clearto the front door. If he'd come out into the hall, we'd have seenhim."
"And he didn't come out into the hall while you were there?"
"No, sir."
"Did anybody come in?"
"Oh, no, sir; the front door has a snap-lock. It can't be opened fromthe outside without a key."
"So you are perfectly sure that no one either entered or left thehouse by the front door while you and Rogers were sitting there?"
"Nor by the back door either, sir; to get out the back way, you haveto pass through the room where we were."
"Where were the other servants?"
"The cook was in the kitchen, sir. This is the housemaid's afternoonout."
The coroner paused. Godfrey and Simmonds had both listened to thisinterrogation, but neither had been idle. They had walked softlyabout the room, had looked through a door opening into another roombeyond, had examined the fastenings of the windows, and had ended bylooking minutely over the carpet.
"What is the room yonder used for?" asked Godfrey, pointing to theconnecting door.
"It's a sort of store-room just now, sir," said Parks. "Mr. Vantineis just back from Europe, and we've been unpacking i
n there some ofthe things he bought while abroad."
"I guess that's all," said Goldberger, after a moment. "Send in Mr.Vantine, please."
Parks went out, and Vantine came in a moment later. He corroboratedexactly the story told by Parks and myself, but he added one detail.
"Here is the man's card," he said, and held out a square ofpasteboard.
Goldberger took the card, glanced at it, and passed it on toSimmonds.
"That don't tell us much," said the latter, and gave the card toGodfrey. I looked over his shoulder and saw that it contained asingle engraved line:
M. THEOPHILE D'AURELLE
"Except that he's French, as Parks suggested," said Godfrey. "That'sevident, too, from the cut of his clothes."
"Yes, and from the cut of his hair," added Goldberger. "You say youdidn't know him, Mr. Vantine?"
"I never before saw him, to my knowledge," answered Vantine. "Thename is wholly unknown to me."
"Well," said Goldberger, taking possession of the card again andslipping it into his pocket, "suppose we lift him onto that couch bythe window and take a look through his clothes."
The man was slightly built, so that Simmonds and Goldberger raisedthe body between them without difficulty and placed it on the couch.I saw Godfrey's eyes searching the carpet.
"What I should like to know," he said, after a moment, "is this: ifthis fellow took poison, what did he take it out of? Where's thepaper, or bottle, or whatever it was?"
"Maybe it's in his hand," suggested Simmonds, and lifted the righthand, which hung trailing over the side of the couch.
Then, as he raised it into the light, a sharp cry burst from him.
"Look here," he said, and held the hand so that we all could see.
It was swollen and darkly discoloured.
"See there," said Simmonds, "something bit him," and he pointed totwo deep incisions on the back of the hand, just above the knuckles,from which a few drops of blood had oozed and dried.
With a little exclamation of surprise and excitement, Godfrey bentfor an instant above the injured hand. Then he turned and looked atus.
"This man didn't take poison," he said, in a low voice. "He waskilled!"