of a deeper, more eternal sleep.

The man was dead. Dead--and not from natural causes.

One glance at the blood-stained bedclothes, one look at the gaping wound
in the breast, at the battered, mangled face, told the terrible story.

It was murder! murder most foul! The victim had been stabbed to the
heart.

With a wild, affrighted, cry the porter rushed out of the compartment,
and to the eager questioning of all who crowded round him, he could only
mutter in confused and trembling accents:

"There! there! in there!"

Thus the fact of the murder became known to every one by personal
inspection, for every one (even the lady had appeared for just a moment)
had looked in where the body lay. The compartment was filled for some
ten minutes or more by an excited, gesticulating, polyglot mob of half a
dozen, all talking at once in French, English, and Italian.

The first attempt to restore order was made by a tall man, middle-aged,
but erect in his bearing, with bright eyes and alert manner, who took
the porter aside, and said sharply in good French, but with a strong
English accent:

"Here! it's your business to do something. No one has any right to be in
that compartment now. There may be reasons--traces--things to remove;
never mind what. But get them all out. Be sharp about it; and lock the