might have decisive bearing on the case. Now, this attitude was such
that one could not fail to be impressed with the idea that with both
these men death had been instantaneous. They were both stretched out
upon their backs, their limbs extended, and their hands wide open.

No contraction or extension of the muscles, no trace of conflict could
be perceived; it seemed evident that they had been taken unawares, the
more so as their faces expressed the most intense terror.

"Thus," said the old doctor, "we may reasonably suppose that they were
stupefied by some entirely unexpected, strange, and frightful spectacle.
I have come across this terrified expression depicted upon the faces of
dead people more than once. I recollect noticing it upon the features of
a woman who died suddenly from the shock she experienced when one of
her neighbors, with the view of playing her a trick, entered her house
disguised as a ghost."

Lecoq followed the physician's explanations, and tried to make them
agree with the vague hypotheses that were revolving in his own brain.
But who could these individuals be? Would they, in death, guard the
secret of their identity, as the other victim had done?

The first subject examined by the physicians was over fifty years of
age. His hair was very thin and quite gray and his face was closely
shaven, excepting a thick tuft of hair on his rather prominent chin.
He was very poorly clad, wearing a soiled woolen blouse and a pair of
dilapidated trousers hanging in rags over his boots, which were very
much trodden down at the heels. The old doctor declared that this man
must have been instantly killed by a bullet. The size of the circular
wound, the absence of blood around its edge, and the blackened and