Curtis half rose. “That wasn’t my bedroom,” he gasped. “Then whose was it?”
“John Meredith’s bedroom—good Heavens!” as Curtis collapsed. “Help, Herman. Doctor Curtis has fainted.”
CHAPTER III
A QUESTION OF COLOR
Coroner Penfield waited with untiring patience for Inspector Mitchell to complete his examination before signing to the undertaker’s assistants, who stood grouped at the further end of the hall, to remove the body. In utter silence the men came forward with their stretcher, and all that was mortal of John Meredith was tenderly lifted and carried to a spare bedroom. As the bearers passed Mrs. Meredith’s boudoir door it opened and Anne Meredith stepped across the threshold.
Dressed in her white pegnoir and the unnatural pallor of her cheeks enhanced by the deep shadows under her eyes, she appeared, in the uncompromising glare of the early morning sunlight, like a wraith, and the men halted involuntarily. Before any one could stop her, Anne stepped to the side of the stretcher and drew back the sheet. A shudder shook her at sight of the bloodstains. With a self-control little short of marvelous in one so young she mastered her emotion and laid her hand, with caressing tenderness, against the cold cheek.
“Poor Uncle John!” she murmured. Her hand slipped downward across the broad chest. There was an instant’s pause, then stooping over, she kissed him as some one touched her on the shoulder.
“Anne,” her mother’s voice sounded coldly in her ear. “Come away, at once.”
Under cover of the sheet Anne plucked at a button on the jacket, then with a single sweep of her arm she tossed the sheet over the dead man’s face.
“Pardon me,” she stammered as Coroner Penfield walked over to the stretcher. “Uncle John was very dear to me,” her voice ended in a sob. “I—I—had to see him—to—to—convince myself that this awful thing had really happened. Oh, merciful God—”