“Come, old fellow,” I said. “Come on, old man. Let’s have a look at you.”
I could hear the thud of his tail on the floor, but he did not move. He only whimpered. There is something companionable in the presence of a dog, and I fancied this dog in trouble. Slowly I began to work my way around the table toward him.
“Good boy,” I said, as he whimpered. “We’ll find the light, which ought to be somewhere or other around here, and then—”
I stumbled over something, and I drew back my foot almost instantly. “Did I step on you, old man?” I exclaimed, and bent to pat him. I remember straightening suddenly and hearing the dog pad softly toward me around the table. I recall even that I had put the matches down and could not find them. Then, with a bursting horror of the room and its contents, of the gibbering dark around me, I turned and made for the door by which I had entered.
I could not find it. I felt along the endless wainscoting, past miles of wall. The dog was beside me, I think, but he was part and parcel now, to my excited mind, with the Thing under the table. And when, after æons of search, I found a knob and stumbled into the reception hall, I was as nearly in a panic as any man could be.
I was myself again in a second, and by the light from the hall I led the way back to the tragedy I had stumbled on. Bronson still sat at the table, his elbows propped on it, his cigarette still lighted, burning a hole in the cloth. Partly under the table lay Mrs. Conway face down. The dog stood over her and wagged his tail.
McKnight pointed silently to a large copper ashtray, filled with ashes and charred bits of paper.
“The notes, probably,” he said ruefully. “He got them after all, and burned them before her. It was more than she could stand. Stabbed him first and then herself.”
Hotchkiss got up and took off his hat. “They are dead,” he announced solemnly, and took his note-book out of his hatband.
McKnight and I did the only thing we could think of—drove Hotchkiss and the dog out of the room, and closed and locked the door. “It’s a matter for the police,” McKnight asserted. “I suppose you’ve got an officer tied to you somewhere, Lawrence? You usually have.”