“Where is the body?” she asked in a whisper, coming to a stand in the narrow passage. “This way.” Sir Frank gravely took the girl’s arm in his own and led her straight to the spot. Whether she quivered as they approached the alcove I could not tell, but there was no mistaking her agitation when she caught sight of the stiff form and pallid face. A stifled cry escaped her lips. She leaned forward impulsively, almost as if she had been going to embrace the corpse, and then straightened herself up with a shudder. “How dreadful he looks!” she gasped. There was some excuse for the exclamation, out of place as it seemed at such a moment, and from her lips. The leaden tinge that had struck my attention earlier in the day had deepened and spread over the face and neck, and had become noticeable in the hands as well. The roughness was also accentuated, giving the skin the look of crude parchment in need of scraping before it could be written on. My experience was not enough to tell me whether these were unusual symptoms, and remembering the caution my chief had given me, I was careful to make no remark on them. I watched the great expert’s face, but I might as well have watched the dead man’s for any information it gave me. He had drawn out his golden mascot, as it were unconsciously, and was swinging it with more than usual deliberation as he scanned the ghastly features with an air of the deepest abstraction. Sarah Neobard was less successful in hiding her emotions. In spite of the constraint she was evidently putting on herself I detected a tear edging its way down her cheek. Perhaps her memories of the dead were not all bitter ones. Perhaps there had been a time when he had treated her with kindness. Perhaps--but my speculations were cut short by a self-assertive step behind us. All three of us turned round to see Captain Charles striding down the deserted room. By this time the red lights had been put out. The daylight reached everywhere, and gave the whole place an inexpressibly dreary, discomforting look. The gauze curtains showed bare and shabby, and the cushioned divans and couches revealed wine and coffee stains. The floor was dusty and discoloured. A comparison occurred to me between the dismal scene of revelry and the feelings of the revellers themselves as they awoke next day with jaded nerves and scorched palates and guilty recollections of their orgy. Captain Charles was bursting with self-importance. “I have just come from the Foreign Office,” he began, when Sir Frank pulled him up rather peremptorily. “Be good enough to wait a moment, Inspector.” He turned to the distressed girl. “You identify this as the body of your step-father, Dr. Weathered?” She bowed faintly. “Yes--though it is fearfully changed!” “That is sufficient. Do you feel able to go back by yourself, or would you rather have someone to escort you?” “I would rather be alone,” she murmured.