He was a comparatively young man, not over thirty, and he was fashionably clad in a plaid business suit. He was lying flat on his back on the floor of the second-story corridor of a building known as the Waldmere Chambers, in the city of Madison.
Presently the door of one of the several adjoining rooms was opened and a stylish young woman emerged. She was clad for the street, and lingered to lock the door and put the key in her leather hand bag. Then she turned, and her gaze fell upon the prostrate man, several yards away and nearer the broad stairway leading down to the lower floor and the street door.
“Good heavens! Is he drunk?” she gasped, shrinking involuntarily.
She feared to approach him, though her hesitation was only momentary. For she heard the tread of some one on the stairs, obviously that of a man, and she ventured nearer just as the other appeared at the top of the stairs, a well-built, florid man of middle age.
“Oh, Doctor Perry, look here!” she cried excitedly. “What’s the matter with this man? Is he drunk or ill, or what is the——”
“Well, well, I don’t wonder you ask.” Doctor Perry approached and gazed down at him. “I don’t know, Miss Vernon. He appears to be——”
He stopped short; then crouched and raised the man’s arm, dropping it quickly. It fell back upon the floor as if made of clay.
“Heavens!” he exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “The man is dead.”
“Dead!” Miss Vernon echoed, turning pale.
“Stone dead. Do you know him?”