Leaping down from the ladder, the doctor called Hoyne, and they entered the “haunted” bed chamber. The room was brilliantly lighted by the alabaster bowl and filled with the sickening fumes of flash-powder.
Hoyne opened the windows and returned to where the doctor was thoughtfully viewing Ritsky, who had apparently fainted. He had fallen half out of bed, and hung there with one bony arm trailing and his emaciated face a picture of abject fear.
“My God!” exclaimed Hoyne. “Look there on his throat and chest. The frothy slaver of a hound!”
The doctor took a small porcelain dish from his pocket, removed the lid, and with the blade of his pocket knife, scraped part of the slimy deposit into the receptacle.
“Hadn’t we better try to bring him to?” inquired Hoyne.
After they had lifted him back in bed the doctor leaned over and held his ear to the breast of the recumbent man. He took his stethoscope from his case and listened again. Then he straightened gravely.
“No earthly power can bring him to,” he said, softly, “Ritsky is dead!”
IV.
The detective remained in the house, pending the arrival of the coroner and undertaker, while Doctor Dorp hurried home with his paraphernalia and the sample of slime he had scraped from the corpse. Hoyne was puzzled by the fact that the doctor searched the house and the clothing of the dead man before departing.