Something glittering had caught his eye. A closer look revealed two long needles, crossed and welded together in the center, where they were in contact with each other.
“Save us!” muttered the butler. “This is murder!”
The points of both needles were deeply embedded in the flesh on the left side, and Ruggins knew at once that they pierced the heart![Pg 4]
His first impulse was to pull the needles away. Then some vague recollection of something he had heard about the illegality of touching a body until it had been viewed by a coroner held his hand.
“I’ll wait till the doctor comes, anyhow. My poor master’s dead. It wouldn’t do ’im any good to take out the needles. ’Ave you got the doctor, Amelia?”
“Yes. He will be here in five minutes. His automobile is all ready at his door, and he will come right along.”
It was less than five minutes when Doctor Theophilus Miles—a rather gruff, although good-natured, man of sixty—came into the room, and, with a nod to Ruggins, knelt by the side of the stiffened form upon the floor. He opened one of the eyes with a calm, professional finger, felt for a pulse, and then pulled aside the dressing gown to put his hand over the heart.
He started as he saw the needles. Carefully he pulled them out, gazed at them in silence for nearly a minute. Then he told Ruggins and the maid to go out of the room.
“And don’t say anything about what has happened in this room to the other people in the house until I tell you. If they have found out anything, tell them Mr. Anderton is sick. Understand? And, whatever you do, don’t mention these needles.”
“Don’t you want any ’elp, sir?” asked Ruggins, who did not like to be thus dismissed.