Francis Eversleigh now fixed his gaze on Thornton's body once more.
"Murder!" he suddenly cried in a piercing voice, and dropped back unconscious again.
"Murder!"
Gilbert told himself that he could follow the mind of his father perfectly. His father thought Morris Thornton had been murdered. It was to all intents what was in his own mind.
But if Thornton had been murdered, who, then, was the murderer?
The piercing cry of "Murder!" which Francis Eversleigh had raised before swooning again had not been heard by Gilbert only. The locksmith, who was still in the room, heard it for one, and it filled him with fresh excitement. He had been endeavouring to puzzle out the thing in his own way, and was not exactly surprised to find the idea of murder imported into it. That cry of "Murder!" was the echo of his own thoughts, and from that moment he was so convinced that Thornton had been murdered that nothing would disabuse him of the notion.
The cry was heard by three others, who were only a few steps away from the door of Silwood's chambers when Francis Eversleigh gave utterance to it. They were the doctor from King's College Hospital, a policeman from Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the Inn porter, all arriving together. On hearing it, they ran forward into the room.
The porter had already told both the doctor and the policeman his own version of the finding of the body of Thornton and of the fainting fit of Mr. Eversleigh.
"What was that cry I heard?" demanded the policeman, who was the first to speak.
As he spoke he threw searching glances about and around the room. But Gilbert paid no heed to his question. He knew the doctor, thanked him for coming so promptly, and asked him to try to revive his father.