Fink, who was foreman of the garage, shook his head impressively. “It’s a suicide. Leastwise, that’s what the doctor says. Poisoned hisself. There’s a bottle on the mat inside the car!” “Oh!” exclaimed the young man, interested. “Who is it? One of your customers?” “Never set eyes on him before nor yet the car. He’s a poorly dressed sort of chap. I think he jest crawled in there out of the wet to die!” “Poor devil!” Okewood remarked. “Who found him?” “Jake here,” said Fink, indicating the dripping goblin at his side. “He had to open the door of the Lancia to get by, and blessed if he didn’t see a bloke’s boot sticking out from under the rug!” The gnome, who was one of the washers, eagerly took up the tale. “It give me a proper turn, I tell yer,” he croaked. “I lifts the rug and there ’e wor, lyin’ acrorst the car! An’ stiff, Mister! Blimey, like a poker, ’e wor! An’ twisted up, too, somethink crool! ’Strewth! ’E might ’a’ bin a ’oop, ’e wor that bent! An’ ’is fyce! Gawd! It wor enough to give a bloke the ’orrors, strite!” And he wiped his nose abstractedly on the back of his hand. The young man walked across the yard to the purple car. The doctor had just finished his examination and had stepped back. The torch-lamp on the constable’s belt lit up the interior of the Lancia. Its broad white beam fell upon a figure that was lying half on the floor, half on the seat. The body was bent like a bow. The head was flung so far back that the arched spine scarce touched the broad cushioned seat, and the body rested on the head and the heels. The arms were stretched stiffly out, the hands half closed. As the old washer had said, the face was, indeed, terrible. The glazed eyes, half open, were seared with fear, but, in hideous contrast, the mouth was twisted up into a leery, fatuous grin. He was a middle-aged man, inclining to corpulence, with a clean-shaven face and high cheek-bones, very black eyebrows, and jet-black hair cut _en brosse_. He was wearing a long drab overcoat which, hanging open, disclosed beneath it a shabby blue jacket and a pair of old khaki trousers. “Strychnine!” said the doctor—he held up a small medicine bottle, empty and without a label. “That grin is very characteristic. The _risus sardonicus_, we call it. And the muscles are as hard as a board. He’s been dead for hours, I should say. When did the car come in?” “Round about five o’clock, George said,” the foreman replied. “A young fellow brought it. Said he’d be back later to fetch it away. My word! He’ll get a nasty jar when he turns up!” “Have you any idea who the dead man is?” Okewood asked the doctor.