't ask questions!"

The constable started back and was evidently debating upon his chances
with the two of us, when my friend pulled a letter from his pocket and
thrust it under the man's nose.

"Read that!" he directed harshly, "and then listen to my orders."

There was something in his voice which changed the officer's opinion of
the situation. He directed the light of his lantern upon the open letter
and seemed to be stricken with wonder.

"If you have any doubts," continued Smith--"you may not be familiar with
the Commissioner's signature--you have only to ring up Scotland Yard
from Dr. Petrie's house, to which we shall now return, to disperse
them." He pointed to Forsyth. "Help us to carry him there. We must not
be seen; this must be hushed up. You understand? It must not get into
the press--"

The man saluted respectfully; and the three of us addressed ourselves
to the mournful task. By slow stages we bore the dead man to the edge
of the common, carried him across the road and into my house, without
exciting attention even on the part of those vagrants who nightly slept
out in the neighborhood.

We laid our burden upon the surgery table.

"You will want to make an examination, Petrie," said Smith in his
decisive way, "and the officer here might 'phone for the ambulance. I
have some investigations to make also. I must have the pocket lamp."

He raced upstairs to his room, and an instant later came running down
again. The front door banged.

"The telephone is in the hall," I said to the constable.

"Thank you, sir."

He went out of the surgery as I switched on the lamp over the table and
began to examine the marks upon Forsyth's skin. These, as I have said,
were in groups and nearly all in the form of elongated punctures; a
fairly deep incision with a pear-shaped and superficial scratch beneath
it. One of the tiny wounds had penetrated the right eye.

The symptoms, or those which I had been enabled to observe as Forsyth
had first staggered into view from among the elms, were most puzzling.
Clearly enough, the muscles of articulation and the respiratory muscles
had been affected; and now the livid face, dotted over with tiny wounds
(they were also on the throat), set me mentally groping for a clue to
the manner of his death.

No clue presented itself; and my detailed examination of the body
availed me nothing. The gray herald of dawn was come when the police
arrived with the ambulance and took Forsyth