Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Doggott," he managed to say with some difficulty.
Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's side. The most cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face with its staring yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure seeming so pitifully slight and unsubstantial in comparison with its accustomed strong and virile poise, hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement.
"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood swaying, his lips a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a mist, his head bowed. "'E always was uncommon' good to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit 'ard, comin' this w'y. 'Ow—'ow did it—" He broke down completely for a time, and staggered away to the wall, there to stand with his head pillowed on his crossed forearms.
When he had himself in more control Amber told him as briefly as possible of the head at the window and of its sequel—Rutton's despairing suicide.
Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension. "I've always looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd warned me never to touch that silver tube; 'e never said poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue and melancholy-like, by fits and turns—'e never told me why."
Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it out upon the hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the limbs and closing the eyes before spreading a sheet over the rigid form.
"And now, what, Mr. Amber?" he asked.
Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his problems for some time before answering; a distasteful duty devolved upon him of questioning the servant about his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery which Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself—which, indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to the man whom he had termed his sole intimate. Yet this task, too, must be gone through with.
"Mr. Rutton spoke of a despatch-box, Doggott. You know where to find it?"
"Yes, sir."