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Updated: June 21, 2025
Why, there's no poison on earth would kill a man as quick as that for he must have dropped dead before he could get out of the room to summon help. If it was prussic acid, he swallowed it. Remember, he wasn't in this room more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and he was quite dead when Mr. Vantine found him. Men don't die as easily as all that not from a scratch on the hand.
Even that won't help, if he has never been arrested. And, of course, we can't get at motives until we find out something about him." "But, Godfrey," I said, "suppose you knew who he was and what he wanted with Vantine suppose you could make a guess at who killed him and why how was it done? That is what stumps me. How was it done?" "Ah!" agreed Godfrey. "That's it! How was it done?
Lester," he protested, "it is for us to take trouble. A blunder of this sort we feel as a disgrace. My father, who is of the old school, is most upset concerning it. But this death of Mr. Vantine it is a great blow to me. I have met him many times. He was a real connoisseur we have lost one of our most valued patrons. You say that he was found dead in a room at his house?"
It was sent by the Armands in good faith, because they believed that it had been purchased by Vantine all of which had been arranged very carefully by the Great Unknown." "Tell me how you know all this, Godfrey," I said. "Why, it was easy enough. When you told me yesterday of Armand, I knew, or thought I knew, that it was a plant of some kind.
"He was certainly alive when he came in, sir," said Parks, recovering something of his self-possession. "Maybe he was just looking for a quiet place where he could kill himself. He seemed kind of excited." "Of course," agreed Vantine, with a sigh of relief, "that's the explanation. Only I wish he had chosen some place else. I suppose we shall have to call the police, Lester?"
"Yes, sir; I'm afraid to be here now." "Did Parks come in?" "No, sir; I guess he felt the same way I did." "Then how did you know Vantine was dead? Why didn't you try to help him?" "One look was enough to tell me that wasn't no use," said Rogers, and glanced, with visible horror, at the crumpled form on the floor.
"Mr. Vantine is dead," I said. "You did not know?" He sat staring at me for a moment, as though unable to comprehend. "Did I understand that you said Mr. Vantine is dead?" he stammered. I told him briefly as much as I knew of the tragedy, while he sat regarding me with an air of stupefaction. "It is curious you saw nothing of it in the papers," I added. "They were full of it."
He did not come on usually, some one said, until the middle of the afternoon. I rang his rooms, but there was no reply. Finally I called up the Vantine house. "Parks," I said, "I am bringing up some people to look at that cabinet. It might be just as well to get that cot out of the way and have all the lights going?" "The lights are already going, sir," he said. "Already going? What do you mean?"
"'Then I'll have to put you out, says I, and took hold of her arm. And at that she screamed and jerked herself away; and I grabbed her again, and just then Mr. Vantine opened the door there and came out into the hall. "'What's all this, Rogers? he says. 'Who is this party?
The inference is, then, that neither of them opened the drawer. Well, what follows?" "I don't know," I said helplessly. "Nothing seems to follow." "There is an alternative," Godfrey suggested. "What is it?" I demanded. "The hand that killed Drouet and Vantine may also have closed the drawer," said Godfrey, and looked at me. "And left the letters in it?" I questioned. "Surely not!"
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