"I don't wonder at what you say, but pray listen to me patiently for a moment. It seems that the professor is a medium or spiritualist, or whatever you choose to call it, and the day before yesterday he was lying down in a sleep or trance in a sort of flimsy cabinet, when a cry of fire was raised, and the audience rushed out of the room upstairs to see where the fire had started. While they were gone a medical man—Dr. Riche, I think the name was—remembering that the professor was in a deep sleep or trance, ran down to look after him with a view of transferring him to a place of safety. As he was in the act of opening the door of the room where the professor was lying, it was shut with a bang by someone inside who immediately locked the door, and evidently got away, for when the door was forced, the intruder was nowhere to be seen. But the remarkable thing about it was that a medical hypodermic syringe was found lying on the floor half full of liquid, and on examining Delapine's body a puncture was discovered in his arm which was evidently made by the needle of the syringe. It appears that the head of the police was sent for, and he found Delapine lying on the couch apparently dead. Yesterday afternoon I arrived at the house in answer to a summons, and was about to conduct the autopsy—in fact I had the scalpel in my hand—when this Doctor Riche rushed into the room in a tremendous state of excitement, and tore the knife out of my hand so violently that it cut my fingers. 'Stop, in Heaven's name, stop,' he cried, 'do you want to commit murder?' I naturally became very indignant, and requested him to leave me to my work. Villebois backed up Dr. Riche, and suggested our talking things over in the smoking-room."
"That reminds me," said Paul, "won't you take something? I have some first-rate Beaune locked up in the cupboard which I only bring out to my special friends."
"Well, thanks, I don't mind. But let me offer you one of my cigarettes," said Roux. "Mine are a very special brand which I get from Prazmouski in Moscow. They send me about twelve boxes every month, and they are so delicious I always run short before the month is out."
"For my part," said Paul, "I am so accustomed to smoking Caporals that I have lost the taste for any other brand. Still, if I may—thanks. Yes, these certainly smell delicious," he added as he tapped the end of one on the table.
The two men sat quietly musing in their armchairs as they drank their wine and puffed away in silence.
Paul inhaled his smoke, ejecting it in two white whirls through his nostrils as he reflected on what his friend had been telling him.
"I wonder," he said, as a sudden thought occurred to him, "what made the two doctors stop you in such a hurry? Did they think he was not dead?"
"That is the extraordinary part of the tale. Riche happened to open a drawer at the request of one of the young ladies in the house, and found an envelope sealed up and addressed by Delapine to her. On opening it he found a curious message to the effect that if he were found dead, his body was not to be buried or opened by anyone as he was suspicious of foul play, and it was quite possible that he might not be really dead."
"When did he find this envelope?"
"While I was getting my instruments ready for examination."