But in the strange paleness of that wholly colorless skin, beneath which flowed no single drop of blood, there was something that was of no age. A face absolutely hairless. Not an eyelash, no eyebrows. The nose, cartilage and all, transparent like the noses of some consumptives. No flesh. A jaw, bones, cheek-bones, large sunken eyelids. That was the face between two sticking-out ears; and above it was an enormous forehead running up into an entirely bald skull.
"The finger—the finger!" murmured Dorothy.
The fourth finger of the left hand was missing, cut exactly level with the palm as the will had stated.
The man was dressed in a coat of chestnut-colored cloth, a black silk waistcoat, embroidered in green, and breeches. His stockings were of fine wool. He wore no shoes.
"He must be dead," said one of the young men in a low voice.
To make sure, it would have been necessary to bend down and apply one's ear to the breast above the heart. But they had an odd feeling that, at the slightest touch, this shape of a man would crumble to dust and so vanish like a phantom.
Besides, to make such an experiment, would it not be to commit sacrilege? To suspect death and question a corpse: none of them dared.
Dorothy shivered, her womanly nerves strained to excess. Maître Delarue besought her:
"Let's get away.... It's got nothing to do with us.... It's a devilish business."
But George Errington had an idea. He took a small mirror from his pocket and held it close to the man's lips. After the lapse of some seconds there was a film on it.