He opened his unobtrusive-looking, comparatively small bag. There was a sound of wrenching wood and metal, and then the door swung backwards into the room together with a thick green velvet curtain fixed along the top of the door on a hinged rod. A flood of wintry sunshine, thrown by the blinking now setting sun of a London January afternoon, streamed into the dark passage, and Sir Angus Kinross strode forward into the room, Lord St. Amant immediately behind him. Katty shrank back and then placed herself by the wall of the passage. She put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out a dreadful sight, yet all there was to see was an open door through which came a shaft of pallid wintry afternoon light. For a space of perhaps thirty seconds, Sir Angus's trained eyes and mind took in what he supposed to be every detail of the oblong room overlooking the now bare tree tops of the Green Park. He noted that the office furniture was extremely good--first-rate of its kind. Also that the most prominent thing in the room was an American roll-top desk of an exceptionally large size. Placed at right angles right across the office, this desk concealed nearly half the room. In the corner behind the door was a coat stand, on which there hung a heavy, fur-lined coat, and a silk hat. On the floor was a thick carpet. The only unbroken space of wall was covered by a huge diagram map of what looked like a piece of sea shore. One peculiar fact also attracted the attention of the Commissioner of Police. Both the windows overlooking the Park were wide open, fixed securely back as far as they would go: and on the window seats, comfortably, nay luxuriously, padded, and upholstered in green velvet, there now lay a thick layer of grime, the effect of the fog and rain of the last fortnight. As they stood within the door, in spite of those widely opened windows, there gradually stole on the senses of the four men there, a very curious odour, an odour which struck each of them as horribly significant. Yet another thing Sir Angus noted in that quick, initial glance; this was that the blind of the narrow window which gave on to the street side of Duke House was drawn down, casting one half of the room in deep shadow. He turned, and addressing Lord St. Amant in a very low voice, almost in a whisper, he said: "I think we shall find what we have come to seek over there, behind that desk." Walking forward, he edged round by the side of the big piece of walnut wood furniture. Then he started back, and exclaimed under his breath, "Good God! How horrible!" He had thought to see a body lying at full length on the carpet, but what he did see, sitting upright at the desk, was a stark, immobile figure, of which the head, partly blown away, was sunk forward on the breast....