I examined the body. It was clothed in a nightgown and the clothes lay folded up on the chair by the bedside. The face was calm, there were no marks of violence on the throat or on the frame. Only on the violet lips lingered a slight curl of foam. The smooth bedclothes drawn up to the chin forbade the idea of a struggle. I looked at the right arm lying on the counterpane, at the hand, and there in the palm was a ragged wound from thumb to little finger. It was discolored at the edges, and looked green and unwholesome. This livid appearance made me think of poison, but I was not sufficiently a doctor to diagnose the case correctly. Yet I was certain of one thing. That Francis Briarfield had come by his death in some foul fashion, and that at the hands of--whom? Aye! there was the rub. So far as I knew the landlord had no motive to commit such a crime. Suspicions pointed toward the maid who had wished to speak with the dead man after supper. Yet why should she desire his death? From the lips of Francis himself I had heard that he knew neither Strent nor Rose, nor indeed aught of the Fen Inn. Hither he had been brought by his brother's letter to keep an appointment, and was as ignorant of the inn, of its inmates, of its surroundings as I. Could Felix have committed the crime? True, if my theory were correct, and he had passed himself off to Olivia Bellin as Francis, there were some grounds for believing he wished his brother out of the way. Francis would undoubtedly refuse to permit the deception to be carried on, so it was just possible that Felix, in a frenzy of wrath and terror at the idea of his treachery being exposed, might have slain his brother. Yet all this fine theory was upset by the fact that Felix had not arrived on the previous night to keep the appointment. He therefore must be guiltless. If so, what of the landlord and his daughter? Certainly they had no reason to slay a stranger who had sheltered under their roof for the night. Yet their flight looked suspicious. If they were innocent why did they leave the inn? Another question pregnant with meaning was the reason of their being alone in the inn. I had seen no servants either indoors or out. Father and daughter appeared to do all the work, yet it was beyond all reason that they should have no assistance. Where was the cook, the waiter, the hostler, the chambermaid? The house was a large one. Two people with all the will in the world could not thoroughly attend to the domestic economy of so great a mansion. Moreover, the girl had looked unused to work. That in itself was suspicious. "Can it be?" I thought. "Can it be that these two hired this inn to compass the death of Francis Briarfield, and that he was drawn here as into a snare by his brother's letter? On the face of it, it looks absurd, and yet in what other way can I explain the absence of servants, the mildewed aspect of the rooms? Now Francis is dead, and they without a word to me have departed."