Carefully Roger lifted a mauve, mudstained wet scarf, the two ends of which were knotted about the throat. Some object was fastened securely to the middle of the strip of silk, tied by a ribbon. He examined it wonderingly. It was the broken, jagged neck of a bottle.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
All the servants of the household, drawn by Aline's screams, now crowded upon the steps and looked on with frightened faces. From them issued a confusion of hazarded explanations, all wide of the truth. Madame had started to go out and had had a stroke of some sort; Madame had shot herself; Madame had been lured outside by a bandit and struck with a club, the object being to secure her pearls. Yet, no—the pearls were not missing, there they were around her neck, stained dark with blood. Ah! … what a terrible sight! Then it was not robbery after all. What could it be, then?
The neck of the bottle hung around her throat caused complete mystification, likewise the fact that upon the feet were no shoes, only the cobwebby black stockings, laced with delicate clocks, which she had worn the night before. What could have possessed her to venture out at night and into the rain as well, clad in the filmy, perishable gown and in her stocking-feet? It was a mystery wholly baffling; not one of the excited staff could offer a reasonable theory.
When the body was raised from the ground one fact at least was established, and that was that death had not been occasioned by the gash on the temple. At the first movement the head swung back like the head of a sawdust doll. The neck had been broken.
They bore the body upstairs and laid it on the gilt bed. Then at a word from Roger the butler picked up the receiver of the telephone upon the painted table de nuit and rang up Dr. Bousquet. The physician could do no good, but he would attend to certain necessary formalities. The servants crowded around, quiet now but avid with curiosity, until Roger with a wave of the hand cleared the room, at the same time issuing instructions to the chief of them. When he believed himself alone with Chalmers a touch on the arm reminded him that the messenger, who had followed the cortege upstairs, was still lingering on the threshold of the bedroom. With his grubby hand he held out the telegram he had brought, pointing to the name on the back.
"Leddy Cleefford? C'est madame la?" he whispered hoarsely.
Roger nodded and took the telegram, slipping it into his pocket. Then mechanically he handed the messenger fifty francs and watched him depart. At the door of Esther's room he encountered his aunt, her face full of alarm.
"What is it all about, Roger? Something dreadful has happened, I know it! I didn't dare leave the room after what you said."
"Close the door and come outside. Sartorius has gone, so Esther is quite safe from him, but she's in a very nervous state and I don't want her to know this yet…. Brace up, Dido; you must try to take what I'm going to say quite calmly. Thérèse is dead. She died last night."