At the same instant a voice whispered from over my shoulder into my ear:
"Lie still; or slip silently down to the officers stationed below. You were so long that Mr. Gryce became impatient."
Up till then I had supposed that only a moment had elapsed since I first looked in.
"I will stay," I whispered back. I saw that Leighton was about to speak.
"Who are you?" I heard him demand of the intruder, in a passion so great he failed to note the identity of the man he thus accosted. "I have a right to this room. I have paid for it—Ah!" He had just recognised the detective.
With a quick turn he drew the coverlet over the face he seemed to guard so jealously, then with an air of command, which was at once solemn and peremptory, he pointed to the hat which naturally rested on Mr. Gryce's head, and said:
"Respect for the dead! You will uncover, Mr. Gryce."
"The dead?" repeated the astonished detective, striding hurriedly into the room. "The dead? Is this girl dead?"
But his doubt, if doubt it were, disappeared before the look with which Leighton Gillespie regarded him.
"Dead!" that gentleman declared. Then as Mr. Gryce instinctively bared his head, this strange, this incomprehensible man advanced a step, and in tones inconceivably touching and dignified, added this short sentence: