"One minute. I'm a medical student--bit thick, constable--been at a party--but I know what I'm doing. Yes, this man's dead--shot, I think. But my father? Here, come back. That poor girl must be half wild." He ran back into the surgery. "Here, Rich, my girl, this is a terrible business. Yes, yes," he added, slowly examining what his sister had done, and then drawing in his breath, as he passed his hand over the smooth bald head. "How did it happen?" "I--I don't know," gasped the girl, wildly; and now that the burden was partly shifted from her shoulders, her feminine nature began to reassert itself, and she uttered a low wail. "But--here, constable, how did this come about?" The man explained in a few words, all the time gazing searchingly at the inquirer, but shaking his head to himself, as if feeling that the suspicions he harboured were wrong. "And now, sir, I must have some one in," said the man in conclusion. "Yes; of course, of course. But my father? We cannot leave him like that. To take him up to his bedroom would not be wise, and we cannot-- here, Rich, I say, where are you? Constable, help me carry out this sofa." John Whyley followed, and the comfortable couch was carried from its neighbourhood by the ghastly figure lying beyond the table, into the surgery, placed close to the wall, and the wounded man carefully placed upon it in an easier position. "Now, sir, just one look round," said the constable, as Richmond knelt down, weeping silently by her father's side, "and then I'm off. Got this, sir." He drew out the life-preserver, and showed it to the young student before going into the consulting-room, and after a glance round, kneeling by the dead man to make a rapid search of his pockets. "Surely this is not necessary now?" "Yes, sir, it is. One of the first questions my sergeant will ask me will be about recognitions. That will do, sir. Not a scrap of anything about him after a sooperficial search. Now the other place." He returned to the surgery, looked round, peered into a closet, and then examined the door. "No signs of violence," he said; and then the settee caught his attention, and he advanced cautiously, drew up the valance, but only to reveal that it was a great chest, and had not harbour beneath for concealment of person or article connected with the case. "Chest, eh?" he said; and placing his hand to the cushion, he found that it was fastened to the great lid, which he raised with one hand, and directed the light into it with the other; but before it was open many inches he banged it down and started away as if horrified. "Bah, man! scared by a few bones. Articulations, and preparations used in surgical lectures." "Yes, I see," said the man, recovering himself, "but coming upon 'em sudden like, they looked rather horrid. Now, sir, I'm off. I shall send on the first of our men I see, and come back with the doctor. One two streets off, ain't there? if I can find him in the fog."