"What with?"
Jim drew his hands slowly from before his face and forced his eyes to their service. There was no gleam of a knife, or a pistol, anywhere against the dark background of the carpet.
"You might think that he was a Japanese who had committed hari-kari," said Hanaud. "But if he had, the knife would be at his side. And there is no knife."
He stooped over the body and felt it, and drew his hand back.
"It is still warm," he said, and then a gasp, "Look!" He pointed. The man was lying on his side in this dreadful pose of contracted sinews and unendurable pain. And across the sleeve of his shirt there was a broad red mark.
"That's where the knife was wiped clean," said Hanaud.
Jim bent forward.
"By God, that's true," he cried, and a little afterwards, in a voice of awe: "Then it's murder."
Hanaud nodded.
"Not a doubt."