The doctor pursed up his lips as if to speak. But he remained silent for a moment. Then he said:
“Horace, the police must be informed. We can do that on the telephone. This room must be left just as it is until they come. I can do nothing more for poor Hartley. And we shall have to tell the others. I’d better do that myself. I wonder where Greve is? I haven’t seen him all the afternoon. As a barrister he should be able to advise us about—er, the technicalities: the police and all that ...”
Rapid footsteps reverberated down the corridor. Robin Greve appeared at the door. The fat and frightened face of Bude appeared over his shoulder.
“Good God, Doctor!” he cried, “what’s this Bude tells me?”
The doctor cleared his throat.
“Our poor friend is dead, Greve,” he said.
“But how? How?”
Greve stood opposite the doctor in the centre of the library. He had switched on the light at the door as he had come in, and the room was flooded with soft light thrown by concealed lamps set around the cornice of the ceiling.
“Look!” responded the doctor by way of answer and stepped aside to let the young man come up to the desk. “He has a pistol in his hand!”
Robin Greve took a step forward and stopped dead. He gazed for an instant without speaking on the dead face of his host and rival.