It was on its back with its fur coat removed, the better to let the frigid air do its work. Its legs were twisted about each other, and its arms were outflung. Its eyes were staring, hideously, and its lower jaw was dropped. It was intensely ugly to living eyes.
Fyles gazed down at it. So, too, did Annette. And her eyes were hidden.
The girl held the lantern quite still. They were far within the cavern and beyond the reach of the moonlight. Where they stood was out of sight of the distilling apparatus and all that gear which littered the wider floor of the hiding place. It was a narrow tunnel of jagged rock that went on far into the hill.
“He’s moved him back here,” Annette said, after awhile. “He wasn’t shot up here. It was back ther’ by the kegs all stacked around ready to be toted. Maybe as he couldn’t bury him for the snow he’s lettin’ him freeze right her till the spring thaw.”
Fyles made no reply. The girl had only stated that which was obvious to him. He was thinking hard.
Suddenly he dropped on his knees beside the body. He turned the dead thing over and examined the back of the red stable-jacket. There was no need for any close search. There was something more than a bullet hole in the red cloth. It was clear that the dead man had been shot through the heavy fur coat he had been wearing. The rent in the cloth was ragged. The heart had been pierced unerringly.
Fyles laid the body back in its original position. Then he picked up the fur coat that had been flung aside. Yes. There was the bullet hole. Then he picked up an old-patterned gun that had been flung down with the body. He dropped it into his coat pocket, and turned on the girl.
“You saw?” he asked sharply.
“It’s the Wolf’s gun. No one but him ever used it.”
“You saw?” Fyles repeated, with a still sharper inflection.