“Oh, no, sir,” and Bob Moore looked shocked, “it isn’t that, at all. It’s worse than that,—it’s an accident.”
“What sort of an accident? Taxi smash-up? Any kind of a stroke?”
But by this time they were down to the street floor, and the two men stepped out of the car.
Seeing the doctor, who was still bending over the inert figure on the floor, Bates hurried along the onyx lobby till he reached the scene, and could see, without being told, what had happened.
A moment he gazed in silence at his uncle’s face, and then said, excitedly, “Who did this? How was he killed? Why should anybody——”
Silently the doctor pointed to the paper on the floor at the dead man’s side.
Bates read it, and looked up wonderingly.
“Don’t touch it,” warned the physician as the young man stretched out his hand. “It’s a clew,—the police must take charge of it.”
“The police! Oh, yes,—of course,—it’s a murder, isn’t it?”
“You bet it’s a murder!” exclaimed Moore. “And done by women! Oh, gee! what a case it will be!”