r. I saw 'im in Commercial Road at seven, talkin' to a feller
wot's in love wiv 'is sister."

"Then how do you account for this discovery of yours?" asked my
companion.

"I can't account for it, guv'nor. I simply found 'im lying on the
floor, and it give me a shock, I can tell yer. 'E was as cold as ice."

"Let's go and see ourselves," Ambler said: so together we hurried
through the Whitechapel High Street, at that hour busy with its
costermonger market, and along Commercial Road East, arriving at last
in the dirty, insalubrious thoroughfare, a veritable hive of the
lowest class of humanity, Tait Street, Shadwell.

Up the dark stairs of one of the dirtiest of the dwellings our
conductor guided us, lighting our steps with wax vestas, struck upon
the wall, and on gaining the third floor of the evil-smelling place he
pushed open a door, and we found ourselves in an unlit room.

"Don't move, gentlemen," the old man urged. "You may fall over 'im.
'E's right there, just where you're standin'. I'll light the lamp."

Then he struck another match, and by its fickle light we saw the body
of Lane, the street-hawker, lying full length only a yard from us,
just as our conductor had described.

The cheap and smelling paraffin lamp being lit, I took a hasty glance
around the poor man's home. There was but little furniture save the
bed, a chair or two, and a rickety table. Upon the latter was one of
those flat bottles known as a "quartern." Our first attention,
however, was to the prostrate man. A single glance was sufficient to
show that he was dead. His eyes were closed, his hands clenched, and
his body was bent as though he had expired in a final paroxysm of
agony. The teeth, too, were hard set, and there were certain features
about his appearance that caused me to entertain grave suspicion from
the first. His thin, consumptive face, now blanched, was strangely
drawn, as though the muscles had suddenly contracted, and there was an
absence of that composure one generally expects to find in the faces
of those who die naturally.

As a medical man I very soon noted sufficient appearances to tell me
that death had been due either to suicide or foul play. The former
seemed to me the most likely.

"Well?" asked Ambler, rising from his knees when I had concluded the
examination of the dead man's skinny, ill-nourished body. "What's your
opinion, Ralph?"

"He's taken poison," I declared.

"Poison? You believe he's been poisoned.