CHAPTER II THE DEATH-CARD If the appearance of the room was amazing, that of the dead woman was not less so. The body was lying loosely in an armchair, with sprawling legs and arms, like a saw-dust doll. The head lay limply on the shoulder, and a yellow cord--evidently torn from a near curtain--was bound tightly round the lean throat The distorted face, the protruding tongue, the bulging eyes, and discoloured skin, all showed that the poor creature had been strangled in the most remorseless manner. Before her was placed a low cane table, on the yellow coverlet of which a pack of cards was spread out face downward, but in the lap of the dead woman lay another card with the face upward. It was the ace of spades. Mrs. Presk noting it for the first time gave a screech of mingled horror and surprise. "The death-card!" she gasped, stepping back. "Lord! how awful!" "What do you mean by the death-card?" asked Gebb, sharply. "Why!" said Mrs. Presk, astonished at the question, which to her seemed unnecessary, "it's the card in the pack as stands for death. When you turn up the ace of spades you know it's time to order your coffin." "Rubbish!" said Gebb. "Humbug!" roared the inspector; and they both shrugged their shoulders to show their contempt for such superstition. Mrs. Presk shook her head gloomily. "Talk won't alter the matter!" she said, pointing to the card. "There's the death-token, and there's the corpse; what do you make of that?" "I make this," said Gebb, dryly; "that the murderer must be a person of imagination." "He ought to be shot, the blackguard," growled Lackland, "play-acting with a corpse. I wonder what they were fooling with cards for? Looks like a madman's work to me. What do you say, Gebb?" Gebb said nothing at the moment. He was examining the dead woman, who was arrayed with unusual splendour quite in keeping with the room, yet too richly for the front parlour of a fifth-rate lodging-house. Miss Ligram's body was that of an old woman close upon sixty years of age, with a wrinkled face, and a profusion of silvery white hair turned back in the style of Marie Antoinette. It was dressed in an old-fashioned dinner-dress of white silk, trimmed with valuable lace, and this was designed so as to show the lean neck and bony arms of the wearer. Anything more incongruous than that poor clay clothed in such costly garments can scarcely be imagined. It seemed to accentuate the grimness of the crime, almost to elevate a sordid murder to the level of tragedy. "Did Miss Ligram usually dress like this?" asked Gebb, turning to Mrs. Presk. "Every evening!" replied the landlady, promptly. "She must have been eccentric!" was Gebb's comment on this reply. "Very eccentric, sir. I don't think she was quite right here." And the landlady tapped her head significantly. "A Crazy Jane?" questioned Lackland.