[Pg 48]

CHAPTER VII

A RED-HAIRED WOMAN!

I bent over the corpse and touched the forehead tentatively with my finger-tips. It was stone cold. The man must have been dead many hours.

I

“Come on; we must send for the police; pull yourself together, man!” I said to Jenkins, who seemed half-paralyzed with fear and horror.

We squeezed back through the small opening, and I gently closed the door, and gripping Jenkins by the arm, marched him down the stairs to my rooms. He was trembling like a leaf, and scarcely able to stand alone.

“We’ve never had such a thing happen before,” he kept mumbling helplessly, over and over again.

I bade him have some whiskey, if he could find any, and remain there to keep an eye on the staircase, while I went across to Scotland Yard; for, through some inexplicable pig-headedness on the part of the police authorities, not even the headquarters was on the telephone.

The Abbey bells were ringing for afternoon service, and there were many people about, churchgoers and holiday makers in their Sunday clothes. The contrast between the sunny streets, with their cheerful crowds, and the silent sinister tragedy of the scene I had just left struck me forcibly.

[Pg 49]

[Pg 49]

If I had sent Jenkins on the errand, I guess he would have created quite a sensation. That is why I went myself; and I doubt if any one saw anything unusual about me, as I threaded my way quietly through the throng at Whitehall corner, where the ’buses stop to take up passengers.

A minute or two later I was in an inspector’s room at “the Yard,” giving my information to a little man who heard me out almost in silence, watching me keenly the while.

I imagine that I appeared quite calm. I could hear my own voice stating the bald facts succinctly, but, to my ears, it sounded like the voice of some one else, for it was with a great effort 

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