"Lester! Come here!" he cried.
I ran back along the hall, into the room which he had entered. He was standing just inside the door.
"Look there," he said, with a queer catch in his voice, and pointed with a trembling hand to a dark object on the floor.
I moved aside to see it better. Then my heart gave a sickening throb; for the object on the floor was the body of a man.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST TRAGEDY
It needed but a glance to tell me that the man was dead. There could be no life in that livid face, in those glassy eyes.
"Don't touch him," I said, for Vantine had started forward. "It's too late."
I drew him back, and we stood for a moment shaken as one always is by sudden and unexpected contact with death.
"Who is he?" I asked, at last.