"Stephen, Stephen, you are in the presence of death!"
"That's what I told you," Stephen replied hardly, pouring himself out some brandy. "Unnerving, isn't it?"
"Go, Ford!" Joseph said. "Just tell Dr Stoke that Mr. Herriard has met with an accident, and beg him to come at once!"
"Why the euphemism?" enquired Stephen, as the stricken valet withdrew.
Joseph said, hushed: "Come here a moment, my boy. It wasn't a stroke. Oh, my God, Stephen, Nat has been murdered!"
"Have you gone mad?" Stephen demanded, the brandy half-way to his lips.
"Look!" said Joseph, holding up his hand.
The palm of it was stained with blood. Stephen set down his glass with a jarring sound on the mantelpiece, and came back to Nathaniel's body. "How - ? Where - ? What the devil are you driving at?"
Joseph dragged his handkerchief from his pocket, and passed it over his face. "I was trying to straighten him," he said unsteadily. "I felt something sticky on his back. He's been stabbed, Stephen! My brother Nat!"
"Damn it, he was in here with the door locked!" Stephen said. "He can't have been stabbed!"