Without replying, Thorndyke handed me his research-case, stepped across to the window, sprang up on the sill, drew down the upper sash and disappeared between the curtains into the room. A moment later the street door opened and Meade and I entered the hall. We glanced through the open doorway into the lighted room, and I noticed a heap of needlework thrown hastily on the dining table. Then Meade switched on the hall light, and Thorndyke walked quickly past him to the half-open door of the next room. Before entering, he reached in and switched on the light; and as he stepped into the room he partly closed the door behind him. “Don’t come in here, Meade!” he called out. But the parson’s eye, like my own, had seen something before the door closed: a great, dark stain on the carpet just within the threshold. Regardless of the admonition, he pushed the door open and darted into the room. Following him, I saw him rush forward, fling his arms up wildly, and with a dreadful, strangled cry, sink upon his knees beside a low couch on which a woman was lying. “Merciful God!” he gasped. “She is dead! Is she dead, doctor? Can nothing be done?” Thorndyke shook his head. “Nothing,” he said in a low voice. “She is dead.” Poor Meade knelt by the couch, his hands clutching at his hair and his eyes riveted on the dead face, the very embodiment of horror and despair. “God Almighty!” he exclaimed in the same strangled undertone. “How frightful! Poor, poor Millie! Dear, sweet friend!” Then suddenly--almost savagely--he turned to Thorndyke. “But it can’t be, doctor! It is impossible--unbelievable. That, I mean!” and he pointed to the dead woman’s right hand, which held an open razor. Our poor friend had spoken my own thought. It was incredible that this refined, pious lady should have inflicted those savage wounds that gaped scarlet beneath the waxen face. There, indeed, was the razor lying in her hand. But what was its testimony worth? My heart rejected it; but yet, unwillingly, I noted that the wounds seemed to support it; for they had been made from left to right, as they would have been if self-inflicted. “It is hard to believe,” said Thorndyke, “but there is only one alternative. Someone should acquaint the police at once.” “I will go,” exclaimed Meade, starting up. “I know the way and the cab is there.” He looked once more with infinite pity and affection at the dead woman. “Poor, sweet girl!” he murmured. “If we can do no more for you, we can defend your memory from calumny and call upon the God of Justice to right the innocent and punish the guilty.” With these words and a mute farewell to his dead friend, he hurried from the room, and immediately afterwards we heard the street door close. As he went out, Thorndyke’s manner changed abruptly. He had been deeply moved--as who would not have been--by this awful tragedy that had in a moment shattered the happiness of the genial, kindly parson. Now he turned to me with a face set and stern.