The inspector stepped quickly back to the landing.
"Flack!" he called, and unconsciously his voice dropped to a sharp whisper in the presence of death. "Flack, come here."
When Flack reached the door of the library he saw his chief kneeling beside the prostrate body of a dead man. The body lay clear of the table, near the foot of an arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to his chief.
"Is he dead, sir?" he asked.
"Cold and stiff," replied the inspector, in a hushed voice. "He's been dead for hours."
Flack noted that the body was fully dressed, and he saw a dark stain above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him.
Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found the wound from which the blood had flowed.
"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his finger. "It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs reached them.
"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his feet. "Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."