“Half a minute, Mr. Wynn,” he said, as he filled in some words on a form, and handed it to a police officer waiting inside the door. The man took the paper, saluted, and went out.
“I gather that you did not search the rooms? That when you found the man lying dead there, you simply came out and left everything as it was?”
“Yes. I saw at once we could do nothing; the poor fellow was cold and rigid.”
I felt that I spoke dully, mechanically; but the horror of the thing was so strongly upon me, that, if I had relaxed the self-restraint I was exerting, I think I should have collapsed altogether. This business-like little official, who had received the news that a murder had been committed as calmly as if I had merely told him some one had tried to pick my pocket, could not imagine and must not suspect the significance this ghastly discovery held for me, or the maddening conjectures that were flashing across my mind.
“I wish every one would act as sensibly; it would save us a lot of trouble;” he remarked, closing his note-book, and stowing it, and his fountain pen, in his breast-pocket. “I will return with you now; my men will be there before we are, and the divisional surgeon won’t be long after us.”
The rooms were in great disorder, and had been subjected to an exhaustive search. Page [51]
We walked the short distance in silence; and when we turned the corner of the street where the block was situated, I saw that the news had spread, as such news always does, in some unaccountable fashion, for a little crowd had assembled, gazing at the closed street-door, and exchanging comments and ejaculations.
I pulled out my keys, but, for all the self-control I thought I was maintaining, my hand trembled so I could not fit the latch-key into the lock.