He was dead.

The tragic scene had been enacted so swiftly that the men who were
its shuddering spectators remained for a moment confounded. The
solicitor made the sign of the cross and went down on his knees. The
Prefect murmured:

"Poor Vérot!... He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of
his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to--and who knows?
Perhaps he might have been saved--he came back here in the hope of
communicating his secret. Poor Vérot!--"

"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.

"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.

"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.

Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for
the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor
aside and said:

"There is no doubt that Inspector Vérot was poisoned. Look at his
wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation
round it."

"Then he was pricked in that place?"

"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may