Seeing she was distracted and hardly knew what she was saying, the man drew back, and Deborah ran up the stairs to Sylvia's room, where she found the poor girl still unconscious.
Meanwhile, an Inspector had arrived, and one of the policemen was detailing all that had occurred from the time Deborah had given the alarm at the window. The Inspector listened quietly to everything, and then examined the body. "Strangled with a copper wire," he said, looking up. "Go for a doctor one of you. It goes through the floor," he added, touching the wire which still circled the throat, "and must have been pulled from below. Examine the cellar."
Even as he spoke, and while one zealous officer ran off for a medical man, there was a grating sound and the trap-door was thrown open. A policeman leaped into the shop and saluted when he saw his superior. By this time the gas had been lighted. "We've broken down the back door, sir," said he, "the cellar door—it was locked but not bolted. Nothing in the cellar, everything in order, but that wire," he pointed to the means used for strangling, "dangled from the ceiling and a cross piece of wood is bound to the lower end."
"Who does the shop belong to?"
"Aaron Norman," said the policeman whose beat it was; "he's a second-hand bookseller, a quiet, harmless, timid sort of man."
"Anyone about?"
"No, sir. I passed down Gwynne Street at about a quarter past twelve and all seemed safe. When I come back later—it might have been twenty minutes and more—say twenty-five—I saw the woman who was down here clinging to a window on the first floor, and shouting murder. I gave the summons, sir, and we broke open the door."
Inspector Prince laid down the dead man's head and rose to his feet with a nod. "I'll go upstairs and see the woman," he said; "tell me when the doctor comes."
Upstairs he examined the sitting-room, and lighted the gas therein; then he mounted another storey after looking through the kitchen and dining-room. In a bedroom he found an empty bed, but heard someone talking in a room near at hand. Flinging open the door he heard a shriek, and found himself confronted by Deborah, who had hastily flung on some clothes. "Don't come in," she cried, extending her arm, "for I'm just getting Miss Sylvia round."