The Doctor was eager to point out that the fault was none of his. He had come the moment he had heard of the case, and, moreover, sunstroke was a disease which betrayed itself by no premonitory symptoms. He assured the Publisher that if the Comic Author’s survival could in any way be of service to the firm he would do everything in his power to save his life. The Publisher replied, a little testily, that the value of the Comic Author’s survival would entirely depend upon the talent remaining to him after his recovery, and pointed out what the Doctor had overlooked, that a sensational death, if it received due recognition from the Press, often caused the works of the deceased to sell for a week or more with exceptional rapidity. He next asked whether the Comic Author had not left manuscripts, and the Landlady was pleased to bring him not only all that lay upon the deal table, but much more beside, and all his private correspondence as well, which she found where she had often perused it, in various receptacles of her lodger’s room. The Publisher upon receiving these seemed to feel his position less acutely, and sending the sheets out at once to his secretary in the car (with instructions that those stories or sketches hitherto unpublished should be carefully noted) he resumed his conversation with the medical man. He was first careful to ask how long cases of this sort when they proved fatal commonly endured, and expressed some relief at hearing that certain benignant exceptions had lingered for several days. He was further assured that lucid intervals might be counted on, and in general he discovered that the lines upon which the story had been intended to proceed might be recovered from the lips of the dying man before he should exchange the warm and active existence of this world for the Unknown Beyond. He re-entered his motor-car, therefore, with a much lighter heart, promising to send an Expert Stenographer who should take down the last and necessary instructions from the lips of Genius. The motor-car then left that court off the Gray’s Inn Road where the tragedy was in progress, and swept westward to the larger atmosphere of St. James’s. At this point again, when the activity and decision of one master brain seemed to have saved all, Fate intervened. The Expert Stenographer, having lacked regular employment for nearly eighteen weeks, was so overjoyed at learning the news and the price attached to his immediate services, that he could not resist cheerful refreshment and conversation with friends in celebration of the occasion. He reached the Gray’s Inn Road, therefore, somewhat late in the day; he was further delayed by a difficulty in discovering the house with broken windows which had been indicated to him, and when he entered it was to receive the unwelcome news that the Comic Author was dead.