The oppressive stillness was not that of solitude. She must be awake;
she must be listening in terror.

I went toward the curtains, and when I spoke I heard the words come
through my lips in a voice that I could not recognize as mine.

"Jacqueline!" I whispered, "it is Paul. Paul, your friend. Are you
safe, Jacqueline?"

Now I saw, under the curtains, what looked like the body of a very
small animal. It might have been a woolly dog, or a black lambkin, and
it was lying perfectly still.

I pulled aside the curtains and stood between them, and the scene
stamped itself upon my brain, as clear as a photographic print, for
ever.

The woolly beast was the fur cap of a dead man who lay across the floor
of the little room. One foot was extended underneath the bed, and the
head reached to the bottom of the wall on the other side of the room.
He lay upon his back, his eyes open and staring, his hands clenched,
and his features twisted into a sneering smile.

His fur overcoat, unbuttoned, disclosed a warm knit waistcoat of a
gaudy pattern, across which ran the heavy links of a gold chain. There
was a tiny hole in his breast, over the heart, from which a little
blood had flowed. The wound had pierced the heart, and death had
evidently been instantaneous.