Across the threshold of the closet was stretched the body of the bone-setter. He had killed himself.
XXII
Robelot must have had rare presence of mind and courage to kill himself in that obscure closet, without making enough noise to arouse the attention of those in the library. He had wound a string tightly around his neck, and had used a piece of pencil as a twister, and so had strangled himself. He did not, however, betray the hideous look which the popular belief attributes to those who have died by strangulation. His face was pale, his eyes and mouth half open, and he had the appearance of one who has gradually and without much pain lost his consciousness by congestion of the brain.
"Perhaps he is not quite dead yet," said the doctor. He quickly pulled out his case of instruments and knelt beside the motionless body.
This incident seemed to annoy M. Lecoq very much; just as everything was, as he said, "running on wheels," his principal witness, whom he had caught at the peril of his life, had escaped him. M. Plantat, on the contrary, seemed tolerably well satisfied, as if the death of Robelot furthered projects which he was secretly nourishing, and fulfilled his secret hopes. Besides, it little mattered if the object was to oppose M. Domini's theories and induce him to change his opinion. This corpse had more eloquence in it than the most explicit of confessions.
The doctor, seeing the uselessness of his pains, got up.
"It's all over," said he. "The asphyxia was accomplished in a very few moments."
The bone-setter's body was carefully laid on the floor in the library.
"There is nothing more to be done," said M. Plantat, "but to carry him home; we will follow on so as to seal up his effects, which perhaps contain important papers. Run to the mairie," he added, turning to his servant, "and get a litter and two stout men."
Dr. Gendron's presence being no longer necessary, he promised M. Plantat to rejoin him at Robelot's, and started off to inquire after M. Courtois's condition.