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“Too late! Oh, hang it all!”

The portress fell on her knees, as though fainting.

I entered the bedroom, in my turn, and saw a man lying half-dressed on the carpet, with his legs drawn up under him, his arms contorted and his face quite white, an emaciated, fleshless face, with the eyes still staring in terror and the mouth twisted into a hideous grin.

“He’s dead,” said Lupin, after a rapid examination.

“But why?” I exclaimed. “There’s not a trace of blood!”

“Yes, yes, there is,” replied Lupin, pointing to two or three drops that showed on the chest, through the open shirt. “Look, they must have taken him by the throat with one hand and pricked him to the heart with the other. I say, ‘pricked,’ because really the wound can’t be seen. It suggests a hole made by a very long needle.”

He looked on the floor, all round the corpse. There was nothing to attract his attention, except a little pocket-mirror, the little mirror with which M. Lavernoux had amused himself by making the sunbeams dance through space.