To all it was at once obvious that the little Hebrew was dead!
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNS A NECKLACE.
“Look at that drunken ass being carried out of his box.”
The speaker stood beside his partner on the floor of the hall, fanning her with an ostrich plume.
The girl laughed.
“Why can’t you men keep sober?” she said, only partly in jest. They remained watching Levi and those assisting him until the group passed out of the box and was lost to sight.
Others had watched him too, and because the conclusion they had all jumped at was that the fellow, whoever he might be, had drunk too much, the incident of his sudden death caused no commotion, and the ball went on as gaily as though nothing untoward had occurred.
Stretched on a sofa in the secretary’s office, Schomberg lay strangely stiff, seeing that he could not have been dead over half an hour. A doctor had been discovered among the dancers, and, dressed to resemble a well-known comedian, he presented a ludicrous figure as he bent over the dead man, listening through his stethoscope. Presently he straightened himself and shook his head.
“Quite dead,” he said. “Who is he? Does anybody know anything about him?”