In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man hanging.
They rushed forward....
"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.
"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.
"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared, horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to examine the miserable remnant of a human being.
The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....
"The hands have been dipped in vitriol—they did not want finger prints taken—it is—it is Jacques Dollon!"
Fandor shook his head.
"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"
Monsieur Havard remarked: