“The accursed brute!” shouted Vauvenarde.  “Yes, I did it.  I wish I had burned out his entrails.”

Anastasius sprang at him like a tiger cat.  I had a quick vision of the dwarf clinging in the air against the other’s bulky form, one hand at his throat, and then of an incredibly swift flash of steel.  The dwarf dropped off and rolled backwards, revealing something black sticking out of Vauvenarde’s frock-coat—­for the second I could not realise what it was.  Then Vauvenarde, with a ghastly face, reeled sideways and collapsed in a heap on the ground.

CHAPTER XV

Of what happened immediately afterwards I have but a confused memory.  I remember that Lola and I both fell on our knees beside the stabbed man, and I remember his horrible staring eyes and open mouth.  I remember that, though she was white and shaky, she neither shrieked, went into hysterics, nor fainted.  I remember rushing down to the manager; I remember running with him breathlessly through obscure passages of the hotel in search of a doctor who was attending a sick member of the staff.  I remember the rush back, the doctor bending over the body, which Lola had partially unclothed, and saying: 

“He is dead.  The blade has gone straight through his heart.”

And I have in my mind the unforgettable and awful picture of Anastasius Papadopoulos disregarded in a corner of the room, with his absurd silk hat on—­some reflex impulse had caused him to pick it up and put it on his head—­sitting on the floor amid a welter of documents relating to the death of the horse Sultan, one of which he was eagerly perusing.

After this my memory is clear.  It was only the first awful shock and horror of the thing that dazed me.

The man was dead, said the doctor.  He must lie until the police arrived and drew up the proces-verbal.  The manager went to telephone to the police, and while he was gone I told the doctor what had occurred.  Anastasius took no notice of us.  Lola, holding her nerves under iron control, stood bolt upright looking alternately at the doctor and myself as we spoke.  But she did not utter a word.  Presently the manager returned.  The alarm had not been given in the hotel.  No one knew anything about the occurrence.  Lola went into her bedroom and came back with a sheet.  The manager took it from her and threw it over the dead man.  The doctor stood by Anastasius.  The end of a strip of sunlight by the window just caught the dwarf in his corner.

“Get up,” said the doctor.

Anastasius, without raising his eyes from his papers, waved him away.

“I am busy.  I am engaged on important papers of identification.  He had a white star on his forehead, and his tail was over a metre long.”

Lola approached him.

“Anastasius,” she said gently.  He looked up with a radiant smile.  “Put away those papers.”  Like a child he obeyed and scrambled to his feet.  Then, seeing the unfamiliar face of the doctor for the first time, he executed one of his politest and most elaborate bows.  The doctor after looking at him intently for a while, turned to me.