Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead man to the detective, and from him to the bundle he was carrying.
"Ah!" exclaimed she.
Max looked in his turn. The detective was displaying, one by one, a woman's skirt, bodice, bonnet, shawl and a cap with a "front" of woman's hair sewn inside it.
"I think you can guess, sir, what's become of the woman now?" said the officer, grimly.
Max started violently, shocked by a surprise which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had been discounted some time ago.
"Mrs. Higgs" was a man.
Even with this knowledge to help him, Max, as he stared again at the dead face, found it difficult to recognize in the still features those which in life had inspired him with feelings of repulsion.
Just a quiet, inoffensive, respectable-looking man not coarse or low in type; this would have been his comment upon the dead man, if he had known nothing about him. Max shuddered as he withdrew his gaze; and, as he did so, he met the eyes of Carrie.
He beckoned to her to come away with him, and she followed him as far as the door, toward which some members of the household, to whom the news had penetrated, were now hastening.
"Carrie!" cried he, as he looked searchingly in her face, "you knew this? How long have you known it?"