"Yes, sir; where from, sir?" "Anywhere! Don't be a fool, sir, and stand gaping there; do as you're told!" His wife interposed. "It's you who's the fool, Mr Elsey! Where do you suppose Timmins is going to get a mattress from? Who do you suppose is going to give it him?--without my sanction! Come with me, Timmins; I'll see that a mattress is got." When she reappeared the waiter was carrying one doubled up on his shoulder. A space had been cleared on the table, on which the mattress was placed. Then the landlord, the waiter, the doctor, and the policeman lifted Mr Emmett between them; the united four seemed to find him no easier burden than the stranger, singlehanded, had done. While the doctor was still conducting his gruesome examination someone else came into the room, an inspector of police. Him the landlord greeted with bustling cordiality. "Most dreadful thing has happened, Mr Tinney; so unfortunate for me that it should have occurred in my house, at this, my busiest season; one of my oldest customers too, Mr Emmett; I daresay you know him." "George Emmett? Oh yes, I know him; who doesn't? How did it happen?" "That's what we don't know--what nobody seems to know--that's the mystery; the whole affair is most mysterious, and--and lamentable. To put it at its lowest, with every desire to put self on one side, one can't help feeling that someone has been guilty of a very unfriendly act to me. In my business one never knows how this sort of thing may be taken, especially by one's best customers. At this moment every bedroom's full; yet directly this becomes known I may have my house empty on my hands, my race week spoilt!" "What's the cause of death?" The inspector put this question to the doctor. "A blow with some blunt instrument, which must have been delivered with tremendous force. Some of the frontal cranium bones seem to be broken in two or three places. Of course my examination has at present only been superficial, but that appears to be the case." The landlord proffered an addition of his own: "It looks as if the blow had been delivered with a champagne bottle." He held up the broken neck. "We found this on the table, and the remaining pieces are here upon the floor." The inspector again addressed the doctor. "Could it have been done with a champagne bottle?" The doctor settled his spectacles on his nose. Being a young man, a sense of responsibility seemed to weigh upon him. His reply was guarded: "It might. Of course you understand that I am not prepared to give a definite opinion, but, to some extent, my present impression is, that it might have been." The inspector turned to the landlord. "Don't you know who was in the room with him?"