lay
there in the room where I had seen the strange woman, lifeless and
stiff, with the laughing eyes forever closed and the last mockery gone
from his lips. Just then the woman appeared again. The young doctor
beckoned to her and said a few words. Jaffery and I followed her into
the death-chamber, leaving the doctor with Barbara. And then we stood
and looked at all that was left of Adrian.

But how did it happen? It was not till long afterwards that I really
knew more than the scared maid-servant and the porter of the mansions
then told us. But that little more I will set down here.

For the past few days he had been working early and late, scarcely
sleeping at all. The night before he had gone to bed at five, had risen
sleepless at seven, and having dressed and breakfasted had locked
himself in his study. The very last page, he told Doria, was to be
written. He was to come down to us for Christmas, with his novel a
finished thing. At ten o'clock, in accordance with custom, when he began
to work early, the maid came to his door with a cup of chicken-broth.
She knocked. There was no reply. She knocked louder. She called her
mistress. Doria hammered . . . she shrieked. You know how swiftly terror
grips a woman. She sent for the porter. Between them they raised a din
to awaken--well--all but the dead. The man forced the door--hence the
splinters on the jamb--and there they found Adrian, in the great bare
room, hanging horribly over his writing chair, with not a scrap of paper
save his blotting-pad in front of him. He must have died almost as soon
as he had reached his study, before he had time to take out his
manuscript from the jealous safe. That this was so the harassed doctor
afterwards affirmed, when he could leave the living to make examination
of the dead. Still later than that we heard the cause of death--a clot
of blood on the brain. . . .

To go back . . . They found him dead. And then arose an unpicturable
scene of horror. It seems that the cook, a stolid woman, on the point of
starting for a Christmas visit, took charge of the situation, sent for
the doctor, despatched the telegram to us, and with the help of the
porter's wife, saw to Adrian. The elder Mrs. Boldero collapsed, a futile
mass of sodden hysteria. Much that was fascinating and feminine in
Adrian came from this amiable and incapable lady.

We went into the dining-room and helped ourselves to whisky and soda--we
needed it--and talked of the catastr