rsyth's face had struck me
as being familiar in some puzzling way, and I knew why Forsyth now
lay dead upon the grass. Save that he was a fair man and wore a slight
mustache, he was, in features and build, the double of Nayland Smith!

CHAPTER V. THE NET

We raised the poor victim and turned him over on his back. I dropped
upon my knees, and with unsteady fingers began to strike a match. A
slight breeze was arising and sighing gently through the elms, but,
screened by my hands, the flame of the match took life. It illuminated
wanly the sun-baked face of Nayland Smith, his eyes gleaming with
unnatural brightness. I bent forward, and the dying light of the match
touched that other face.

"Oh, God!" whispered Smith.

A faint puff of wind extinguished the match.

In all my surgical experience I had never met with anything quite so
horrible. Forsyth's livid face was streaked with tiny streams of blood,
which proceeded from a series of irregular wounds. One group of these
clustered upon his left temple, another beneath his right eye, and
others extended from the chin down to the throat. They were black,
almost like tattoo marks, and the entire injured surface was bloated
indescribably. His fists were clenched; he was quite rigid.

Smith's piercing eyes were set upon me eloquently as I knelt on the path
and made my examination--an examination which that first glimpse when
Forsyth came staggering out from the trees had rendered useless--a mere
matter of form.

"He's quite dead, Smith," I said huskily. "It's--unnatural--it--"

Smith began beating his fist into his left palm and taking little,
short, nervous strides up and down beside the dead man. I could hear a
car humming along the highroad, but I remained there on my knees staring
dully at the disfigured bloody face which but a matter of minutes
since had been that of a clean looking British seaman. I found myself
contrasting his neat, squarely trimmed mustache with the bloated face
above it, and counting the little drops of blood which trembled upon
its edge. There were footsteps approaching. I stood up. The footsteps
quickened; and I turned as a constable ran up.

"What's this?" he demanded gruffly, and stood with his fists clenched,
looking from Smith to me and down at that which lay between us. Then his
hand flew to his breast; there was a silvern gleam and--

"Drop that whistle!" snapped Smith--and struck it from the man's hand.
"Where's your lantern? Don