The constable, with a shudder, withdrew towards the door.

“The atmosphere here is stifling,” said he.  “I must have a breath of out-door air.”

But he was not destined to any such immediate relief.  As he moved down the hall the form of a man darkened the doorway and he heard an anxious voice exclaim: 

“Ah, Mr. Fenton, is that you?  I have been looking for you everywhere.”

It was Sweetwater, the young man who had previously shown so much anxiety to be of service to the coroner.

Mr. Fenton looked displeased.

“And how came you to find me here?” he asked.

“Oh, some men saw you take this road, and I guessed the rest.”

“Oh, ah, very good.  And what do you want, Sweetwater?”

The young man, who was glowing with pride and all alive with an enthusiasm which he had kept suppressed for hours, slipped up to the constable and whispered in his ear:  “I have made a discovery, sir.  I know you will excuse the presumption, but I couldn’t bring myself to keep quiet and follow in that other fellow’s wake.  I had to make investigations on my own account, and—­and”—­stammering in his eagerness “they have been successful, sir.  I have found out who was the murderer of Agatha Webb.”

The constable, compassionating the disappointment in store for him, shook his head, with a solemn look toward the room from which he had just emerged.  “You are late, Sweetwater,” said he.  “We have found him out ourselves, and he lies there, dead.”

It was dark where they stood and Sweetwater’s back was to the moonlight, so that the blank look which must have crossed his face at this announcement was lost upon the constable.  But his consternation was evident from the way he thrust out either hand to steady himself against the walls of the narrow passageway, and Mr. Fenton was not at all surprised to hear him stammer out: 

“Dead!  He!  Whom do you mean by he, Mr. Fenton?”

“The man in whose house we now are,” returned the other.  “Is there anyone else who can be suspected of this crime?”

Sweetwater gave a gulp that seemed to restore him to himself.

“There are two men living here, both very good men, I have heard.  Which of them do you mean, and why do you think that either John or James Zabel killed Agatha Webb?”

For reply Mr. Fenton drew him toward the room in which such a great heart-tragedy had taken place.

“Look,” said he, “and see what can happen in a Christian land, in the midst of Christian people living not fifty rods away.  These men are dead, Sweetwater, dead from hunger.  The loaf of bread you see there came too late.  It was bought with a twenty-dollar bill, taken from Agatha Webb’s cupboard drawer.”

Sweetwater, to whom the whole scene seemed like some horrible nightmare, stared at the figure of James lying on the floor, and then at the figure of John seated at the table, as if his mind had failed to take in the constable’s words.