Carelessly opening the front door, which to his
surprise was not locked, the sheriff was amazed to
see, lying on the floor of the passage into which it
opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Exam-
ination showed it to consist of two hats, and the
same number of coats, waistcoats and scarves, all
in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit
somewhat defiled by the dust in which they lay.
Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, but Mr. King's
emotion is not on record. With a new and lively
interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched
and pushed open the door on the right, and the three
entered. The room was apparently vacant--no;
as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer
light something was visible in the farthest angle of
the wall. It was a human figure--that of a man
crouching close in the corner. Something in the atti-
tude made the intruders halt when they had barely
passed the threshold. The figure more and more
clearly defined itself. The man was upon one knee,
his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders
elevated to the level of his ears, his hands before his
face, palms outward, the fingers spread and crooked
like claws; the white face turned upward on the
retracted neck had an expression of unutterable
fright, the mouth half open, the eyes incredibly
expanded. He was stone dead. Yet, with the excep-
tion of a bowie-knife, which had evidently fallen
from his own hand, not another object was in the
room.
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