‘He is also with them, sir.’
‘Dead?’
‘He shot himself.’
Rex closed his eyes and held the table with his two hands, for he knew who the stranger had been. Seeing that Greif did not move, and supposing that Rex was a mere acquaintance, the man took courage to tell the story, speaking in a low voice to Rex.
‘The gentleman arrived before dinner,’ he said. ‘Their merciful lordships dined together, but the butler said they left the table before it was time. Then they heard firing in the house. We broke the doors and found the Lady Baroness dead, in the room beyond the Herr Baron’s study, and in the study the Herr Baron dead with a pistol in his hand, and the other gentleman dead with another pistol in his hand. I saw them. They had shot themselves as they sat in their chairs before the fire, but the fire was nearly gone out, though the lamp was burning. And then we saddled and rode, we four, one for the police, one for the doctor, one for Sigmundskron, and I for the railway, and here I am. You are a good friend of the young Herr, sir?’
‘Yes, that I am,’ answered Rex, starting as though from sleep.
‘Then it would be best, sir, that you should tell me whither I should go, for the young Herr will be worse if he sees me.’
‘Ask your way to the Red Eagle Inn,’ said Rex, ‘and stay there till we send for you.’
He gave the man a handful of loose coin, thoughtful of all contingencies, as he ever was.
‘You need not talk about this horrible catastrophe,’ he said, as he dismissed the frightened groom.