the steps. The doctor hardly needed a moment's examination; he
said the poor fellow had been dead for several hours, and it was
then the case began to get interesting. The dead man had not
been robbed, and in one of his pockets were papers identifying
him as--well, as a man of good family and means, a favourite
in society, and nobody's enemy, as far as could be known. I
don't give his name, Villiers, because it has nothing to do with
the story, and because it's no good raking up these affairs
about the dead when there are no relations living. The next
curious point was that the medical men couldn't agree as to how
he met his death. There were some slight bruises on his
shoulders, but they were so slight that it looked as if he had
been pushed roughly out of the kitchen door, and not thrown over
the railings from the street or even dragged down the steps.
But there were positively no other marks of violence about him,
certainly none that would account for his death; and when they
came to the autopsy there wasn't a trace of poison of any kind.
Of course the police wanted to know all about the people at
Number 20, and here again, so I have heard from private sources,
one or two other very curious points came out. It appears that
the occupants of the house were a Mr. and Mrs. Charles Herbert;
he was said to be a landed proprietor, though it struck most
people that Paul Street was not exactly the place to look for
country gentry. As for Mrs. Herbert, nobody seemed to know
who or what she was, and, between ourselves, I fancy the divers
after her history found themselves in rather strange waters. Of
course they both denied knowing anything about the deceased, and
in default of any evidence against them they were discharged.
But some very odd things came out about them. Though it was
between five and six in the morning when the dead man was