The man was dead, said the doctor. He must lie until the police arrived and drew up the proces-verbal. The manager went to telephone to the police, and while he was gone I told the doctor what had occurred. Anastasius took no notice of us. Lola, holding her nerves under iron control, stood bolt upright looking alternately at the doctor and myself as we spoke. But she did not utter a word. Presently the manager returned. The alarm had not been given in the hotel. No one knew anything about the occurrence. Lola went into her bedroom and came back with a sheet. The manager took it from her and threw it over the dead man. The doctor stood by Anastasius. The end of a strip of sunlight by the window just caught the dwarf in his corner.
“Get up,” said the doctor.
Anastasius, without raising his eyes from his papers, waved him away.
“I am busy. I am engaged on important papers of identification. He had a white star on his forehead, and his tail was over a metre long.”
Lola approached him.
“Anastasius,” she said gently. He looked up with a radiant smile. “Put away those papers.” Like a child he obeyed and scrambled to his feet. Then, seeing the unfamiliar face of the doctor for the first time, he executed one of his politest and most elaborate bows. The doctor after looking at him intently for a while, turned to me.
“Mad. Utterly mad. Apparently he has no consciousness of what he has done.”
He lured him to the sofa and sat beside him and began to talk in a low tone of the contents of the papers. Anastasius replied cheerfully, proud at being noticed by the stranger. The papers referred to a precious secret, a gigantic combination, which he had spent years in maturing. I shivered at the sound of his voice, and turned to Lola.
“This is no place for you. Go into your bedroom till you are wanted.”
I held the door open for her. She put her hands up to her face and reeled, and I thought she would have fallen; but she roused herself.