With one wild yell of joy, a yell that broke the gas-globes, and unlinked carriages at all the principal London railway stations, Alice Smith fell senseless on the floor.
"Out you get!" exclaimed her cousin Algernon to Mr. Ropes. "If the dog is not dead, come back in two hours, and prove it—otherwise it will be dead, and stuffed too."
"Now then," said Algernon, when Mr. Ropes had gone, "if Tommy Atkins is not dead, he soon will be." He grasped his walking-stick, and tried the door of the room. It was locked. Mr. Ropes had locked it, and taken the key!
"Aha!" he exclaimed. "Baffled! Baffled! Kindly turn the lime-light off the swooned maiden, and throw it on to me. Sympathetic music from the violins, if you please."
One hour had passed. Mr. Alkaloid, the photographer, had met Mr. Mush. Mr. Alkaloid had come from Ryde to London to get his hair singed. The two accidentally met Mr. Ropes as he was dashing wildly down the street towards his own shop. In one minute all was explained. Mr. Alkaloid had fetched his photographic apparatus, and the three were careering back to the house where the poodle lay dead. But was he dead? You know he wasn't, as well as I do. What do you ask such senseless questions for? "It's the only sure test," said Alkaloid. "If that dog's alive, he'll wag his tail when I try to photograph him. I never knew it fail."
Outside the door of that gorgeously-furnished room stood an excited group. Algernon, the villain, was soliloquising. Alice was explaining to Cyril how he had dropped his note down the neck of the wrong girl—who was also named Smith—and how she had been compelled to believe him unfaithful. Mr. Ropes was listening attentively at the key-hole, and Cyril was kissing Alice.
Within the room Mr. Alkaloid was photographing the dead poodle. (I call it dead, but of course that doesn't humbug you.)
"Now then, we're ready," they heard Mr. Alkaloid say. "Don't stare. Just a natural, easy—now then—thank you!"