"I'll go to them. I think I'd better," exclaimed the doctor. "I shall be
in the lounge when they want me. A dreadful affair! Dreadful!"

The little doctor bustled out, leaving Greve and the butler alone in the
room with the mortal remains of Hartley Parrish lying where he had
fallen on the soft grey carpet.

"Now, Bude," said Greve incisively, "get on to the police at once. You'd
better telephone from the servant's hall. I'll have a look round here in
the meantime!"

Bude stood for an instant irresolute. He glanced shrewdly at the young
man.

"Go on," said Robin quickly; "what are you waiting for, man? There's no
time to lose."

Slowly the butler turned and tiptoed away, his ungainly body swaying
about as he stole across the heavy pile carpet. He went out of the room,
closing the door softly behind him. He left Greve sunk in a reverie at
the desk, gazing with unseeing eyes upon the dead face of the master of
Harkings.

That sprawling corpse, the startled realization of death stamped for
ever in the wide, staring eyes, was indeed a subject for meditation.
There, in the midst of all the evidences of Hartley Parrish's meteoric
rise to affluence and power, Greve pondered for an instant on the
strange pranks which Fate plays us poor mortals.

Parrish had risen, as Greve and all the world knew, from the bottom rung