Both the porter and the locksmith had heard the name distinctly before Eversleigh swooned away, and both understood who the dead man was. They were so astounded that they stood looking at each other with startled faces and mouths agape, while Gilbert bent over the unconscious form of his father.
"Morris Thornton at last!" cried the porter; "it's the gentleman as was missing."
"Morris Thornton—yes," said the locksmith; "the missing millionaire—the man wot was advertised for in all the papers."
And then both men were silent, thinking of the reward of a thousand pounds offered for information about this very man.
"I was the first as found him," remarked the locksmith, coming to his wits, to the porter.
"We all found him together, didn't we?" asked the porter, in an aggrieved tone.
Gilbert, meanwhile, had moved his father from off the dead body of Morris Thornton on to the floor, and sought to bring him to by unfastening his collar and tie and opening his shirt. The son felt that his first concern was with his father, not with Morris Thornton—with the living rather than the dead. And now, as he tried to bring back to the inanimate frame the spark of life, he noticed, as he had not done before, how changed, how shrunken were the face and figure of his father. He knew his father had been ailing for some time, but he had not realised how far the mischief had gone. And on the top of this illness had come, first the death of Silwood, and now the discovery of Morris Thornton lying dead in Silwood's chambers! Small wonder was it, he thought, that the shock of this last circumstance, combined with all that had preceded it, had proved too much for his father.
For some minutes he continued his efforts to re-animate Francis Eversleigh, but without avail. The porter and the locksmith gave him what assistance they could; finally the former suggested that a doctor should be sent for.
"Yes," agreed Gilbert; "go round to King's College Hospital. I know one or two of the doctors there; take my card, and get one of them if you can. Say the case is urgent."
But the porter, who by this time was swelling with the importance of the affair—an importance in which he saw himself included—had another suggestion to make.