She drew a little nearer, full of an awful feeling of repulsion, as well as of fear. And then she noticed that a small automatic pistol was lying on the coarse grass near the body.
Did that mean that the unhappy man had killed himself? Nay, it was far more likely, so the girl told herself, that he had been set on by the same gang who had broken into La Solitude the very night he had been there.
There was no sign of a struggle, but then the storm of the night before would have obliterated any traces of that sort. In the bright, clear sunlight the raindrops still glistened on the evergreen leaves; it was not only a beautiful but a very peaceful scene.
Again she forced herself to stoop down and look, and then tears welled up slowly into her eyes; it seemed so piteous that what was huddled up there should have once been a man—a man, too, who had seemed so full of life, even of a kind of bubbling vitality, only a few days ago.
She stood up, faced with a disagreeable personal problem. Ought she to go back to La Solitude and tell the Count and Countess Polda of her horrible discovery? Or would she be justified in going on straight down to the town, and first informing the two men who seemed so much more truly her friends than did Aunt Cosy and Uncle Angelo?
M. Popeau was always so helpful in an emergency. Surely he would know what to do far better than either the Count or Countess? They would probably be very glad to be relieved of whatever might be the necessary steps in such a case as this.
As she had been the first person to find the body, Lily naturally supposed that she would have to see the police, and she knew that it would be less unpleasant to do that with M. Popeau than with her nervous, fussy host, or her queer-tempered hostess.
She walked quickly upwards, to find herself, as she had expected to do, on the little clearing. From there she knew every step of the way down into Monte Carlo. So she hurried on, still feeling terribly shaken and upset, though much more at ease, now that she had made up her mind as to what she ought to do.
As Lily approached the hotel where the English Church service was always held, she noticed that people were walking up to the door, reading a notice that had been pinned up on it, and then turning away. The notice explained that as the chaplain was ill there would be no service that morning.