“Yes,” said Godfrey, as we shook hands, “I happened to be talking to Simmonds when the call came in, and I thought I might as well come along.  What is it?”

“Just a suicide, I think,” and I unlocked the door into the room where the dead man lay.

Simmonds, Goldberger and Godfrey stepped inside.  I followed and closed the door.

“Nothing has been disturbed,” I said.  “No one has touched the body.”

Simmonds nodded, and glanced inquiringly about the room; but Godfrey’s eyes, I noticed, were on the face of the dead man.  Goldberger dropped to his knees beside the body, looked into the eyes and touched his fingers to the left wrist.  Then he stood erect again and looked down at the body, and as I followed his gaze, I noted its attitude more accurately than I had done in the first shock of discovering it.

It was lying on its right side, half on its stomach, with its right arm doubled under it, and its left hand clutching at the floor above its head.  The knees were drawn up as though in a convulsion, and the face was horribly contorted, with a sort of purple tinge under the skin, as though the blood had been suddenly congealed.  The eyes were wide open, and their glassy stare added not a little to the apparent terror and suffering of the face.  It was not a pleasant sight, and after a moment, I turned my eyes away with a shiver of repugnance.

The coroner glanced at Simmonds.

“Not much question as to the cause,” he said.  “Poison of course.”

“Of course,” nodded Simmonds.

“But what kind?” asked Godfrey.

“It will take a post-mortem to tell that,” and Goldberger bent for another close look at the distorted face.  “I’m free to admit the symptoms aren’t the usual ones.”

Godfrey shrugged his shoulders.

“I should say not,” he agreed, and turned away to an inspection of the room.

“What can you tell us about it, Mr. Lester?” Goldberger questioned.

I told all I knew—­how Parks had announced a man’s arrival, how Vantine and I had come downstairs together, how Vantine had called me, and finally how Parks had identified the body as that of the strange caller.

“Have you any theory about it?” Goldberger asked.

“Only that the call was merely a pretext—­that what the man was really looking for was a place where he could kill himself unobserved.”

“How long a time elapsed after Parks announced the man before you and Mr. Vantine came downstairs?”

“Half an hour, perhaps.”

Goldberger nodded.

“Let’s have Parks in,” he said.

I opened the door and called to Parks, who was sitting on the bottom step of the stair.

Goldberger looked him over carefully as he stepped into the room; but there could be no two opinions about Parks.  He had been with Vantine for eight or ten years, and the earmarks of the competent and faithful servant were apparent all over him.