Again the failing hand waved towards the sword, and then fell rigid with a thud. In Kidd rose from its depth all that acrid humour that is the strange salt of the seriousness of his race.
“See here,” he said sharply and with command, “you must fetch a doctor. This man’s dead.”
“And a priest, too, I suppose,” said Dalroy in an undecipherable manner. “All these Champions are papists.”
The American knelt down by the body, felt the heart, propped up the head and used some last efforts at restoration; but before the other journalist reappeared, followed by a doctor and a priest, he was already prepared to assert they were too late.
“Were you too late also?” asked the doctor, a solid prosperous-looking man, with conventional moustache and whiskers, but a lively eye, which darted over Kidd dubiously.
“In one sense,” drawled the representative of the Sun. “I was too late to save the man, but I guess I was in time to hear something of importance. I heard the dead man denounce his assassin.”
“And who was the assassin?” asked the doctor, drawing his eyebrows together.
“Boulnois,” said Calhoun Kidd, and whistled softly.
The doctor stared at him gloomily with a reddening brow—, but he did not contradict. Then the priest, a shorter figure in the background, said mildly: “I understood that Mr Boulnois was not coming to Pendragon Park this evening.”
“There again,” said the Yankee grimly, “I may be in a position to give the old country a fact or two. Yes, sir, John Boulnois was going to stay in all this evening; he fixed up a real good appointment there with me. But John Boulnois changed his mind; John Boulnois left his home abruptly and all alone, and came over to this darned Park an hour or so ago. His butler told me so. I think we hold what the all-wise police call a clue—have you sent for them?”