Both the young men stood still for a moment, shocked beyond the power of speech at what Geoffrey had done. But it was only for a moment. Then Gerard knelt down beside the huddled-up form of Reginald Candover, and laying a hand on his heart said:-- “I don’t think he is dead, after all. Look here! There’s a doctor who lives quite close--a Dr. Fendall. Go and fetch him. And mind you come back, there’s a good chap. We may want more help, and there’s nobody here but a parcel of silly, giggling girls.” But Geoffrey was watching the face of the man whom for the first moment he thought he had killed, and he said:-- “It’s my belief that he’s not only alive, but that he’s shamming. He hears what we’re saying, I’ll swear.” Gerard, however, was not so sanguine. “Go and fetch the doctor, there’s a good chap,” said he. “And I’ll find some one to give me a hand, and we’ll get him on the sofa.” Geoffrey went away, not quite happy, but putting on an air of bravado. “If he is dead, mind you,” said he to his cousin at the door, as he went out, “it serves him jolly well right. For he was going to shoot you when I, watching him through the crack of the cupboard door, sprang out just in time to stop him.” Gerard expressed his thanks for the service by an emphatic nod and ran up the short flight of stairs to the showrooms. Here he found little promise of competent assistance. The girls in the showroom, who were all young, had been thrown off their balance in the first place by the absence of Mademoiselle Laure and Audrey; and when they heard the unusual sounds of men meeting and conversing on the staircase, and peeping out saw them disappear into the little back-room, and then reappear and go out again, they were all seized, naturally enough, with the idea that something was wrong, and that the business had come to an abrupt standstill. Whereupon they took, some to their hats, and some to hysterical tears; when, listening intently for any indication of what might be going on in the back room, they heard the heavy fall of Mr. Candover’s body on the floor, followed by the exclamations and muffled ejaculations of Gerard and his cousin, a panic seized upon them all; and when Gerard came out in search of help, he found the last of the girls taking flight, with her jacket on her arm and her hands in the act of ramming long hatpins into her big picture hat as she followed the others to the door. “Tell me where I can get some water, and--and come and give me a hand, there’s a good girl,” said he persuasively. “Mr. Candover’s fallen down and--er--and hurt himself.” But the girl, seeing blood upon his cuff, answered with an hysterical scream:-- “Oh, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t, sir! The sight of--of anything dreadful would upset me, I know. But there’s water in the jug in Mademoiselle’s room, through there, sir--and I believe she keeps a drop of brandy in the cupboard. I’ll send some one up to help, if you like, sir.” He shrugged his shoulders.