"The Abbey Inn!" I whispered. "The Abbey Inn!"
"Ah!" said he—"you've solved the mystery, have you? But can you explain how this stuff comes to be floating about the floor of your house?"
"I cannot," I confessed. "But at all costs we must go in. We must learn the worst!"
"Yes, we'll risk it now," said the Inspector.
Close together we entered and made our way towards the study. As we passed the door-way of the ante-room in which the telephone was placed. I glanced, aside, and thereupon:
"My God, Gatton!" I groaned. "Look!"
He pulled up and the two of us stood, horror-stricken, rooted to the spot, looking into the little room.
I have said that Coates invariably closed the windows before leaving the house, but here the window was open. Prone upon the floor was stretched the figure of a man!
He wore a light overcoat, and his hat lay under the telephone table—where it had evidently rolled at the moment of his fall. The poisonous smell was more apparent here than elsewhere; and looking down at the prone figure, the face of which was indiscernible because of the man's position:
"Why, Gatton!" I said in an awed whisper—"look!... he was speaking to some one!"