I recollected that Pasquale had informed me that the floor under him, that is, the one adjoining my rooms, was occupied by a troublesome old Frenchman whose peculiar ways gave the people of the house a good deal of trouble.
I waited for a time in silence, but the groan was not repeated, and, eventually, I retired to rest, and to enjoy an unbroken and dreamless sleep.
I awoke somewhat late the following morning, and as I was not obliged to report myself at the office at the usual hour on that occasion, and as I was, moreover, somewhat fatigued, I proposed to enjoy my breakfast in bed and my morning’s newspaper as well—- to me an unprecedented luxury.
If I had anticipated that my morning meal should be enjoyed in comfort I was doomed to be disappointed, for I had scarcely tasted my food before a thundering knock at the door announced my friend Pasquale, who burst into my room newspaper in hand, and with outstretched finger pointed to the giant head lines on the newspaper, “Another Suicide—- Death of Inspector Reynolds by his own hand.”
“Now, my friend, you will see whether my boasted skill is of any use. If I do not prove to your satisfaction that there is something more in these suicides than meets the eye, I will agree to forfeit everything in life.”
I was thunderstruck and horrified. I pushed the paper away from me with the first trace of genuine impatience which I think I had ever displayed towards my friend.
“Take your horrid sheet away, Pasquale,” I exclaimed, “I don’t understand your ghoulish glee——,” but my voice failed me when I saw the look of pain and remorse which crossed his face.
“Wyndham, I swear to you before God,” he replied with an earnestness which it is pitiful to remember, “that I would not injure a hair of anyone’s head whom the Good Lord has made, no, not for life itself, if I knew it.”
My friend left shortly afterwards, cast down, it seemed to me, in spite of my reiterated assurance that I had spoken hastily and tetchily, having only just been waked out of my sleep.
When I returned to my apartments that evening there had been up to that time no indication of any clue to the cause of the suicide, beyond the strange, unsatisfactory letter which, as in the other cases of suicide, had been left behind him by the dead man; and the condition of the public mind was, in consequence, one of profound horror and anxiety.