The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation | Page 4

no more than one glance at the rigid
features, one touch of the already fixed and statue-like body, to know
that James Allerdyke was not only dead, but had been dead some time.
And, with a shuddering sigh, Marshall Allerdyke drew himself up and
looked round at his surroundings.
Nothing could have been more peaceful than that quiet hotel bedroom;
nothing more orderly than its arrangements. Allerdyke had always
known his cousin for a man of unusually tidy and methodical habits;
the evidence of that orderliness was there, where he had pitched his
camp for presumably a single night. His toilet articles were spread out
on the dressing-table; his pyjamas were laid across his pillow; his open
suit-case lay on a stand at the foot of the bed; by the bedside lay his
slippers. An overcoat hung from one peg of the door; a dressing-gown
from another; on a chair in a corner lay, neatly folded, a couple of
travelling rugs. All these little details Allerdyke's sharp eyes took in at
a glance; he turned from them to the things nearer the dead man.
James Allerdyke sat in a big easy chair, placed at the side of a round
table set towards a corner of the room. He was fully dressed in a grey
tweed suit, but he had taken off one boot--the left--and it lay at his feet
on the hearthrug. He himself was thrown back against the high-padded
hood of the chair; there was a little frown on his set features, a tiny
puckering of the brows above his closed eyes. His hands were lying at
his sides, unclasped, the fingers slightly stretched, the thumbs slightly
turned inward; everything looked as if, in the very act of taking off his
boots, some sudden spasm of pain had seized him, and he had sat up,
leaned back, and died, as swiftly as the seizure had come. There was a
slight blueness under the lower rims of the eyes, a corresponding tint
on the clean-shaven upper lip, but neither that nor the pallor which had
long since settled on the rigid features had given anything of
ghastliness to the face. The dead man lay back in his chair in such an

easy posture that but for his utter quietness, his intense immobility, he
might have well been taken for one who was hard and fast asleep.
The sound of the night-porter's returning footsteps sent Allerdyke out
into the corridor. Unconsciously he shook his head and raised a
hand--as if to warn the man against noise.
"Sh!" he said, still acting and speaking mechanically. "Here's--I knew
something was wrong. The fact is, my cousin's dead!"
In his surprise the night-porter dropped the key which he had been to
fetch. When he straightened himself from picking it up, his ruddy face
had paled.
"Dead!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "Him! Why, he looked the picture
of health last night. I noticed that of him, anyway!"
"He's dead now," said Allerdyke. "He's lying there dead. Come in!"
The door along the corridor from which the man of the shock head and
great beard had looked out, opened again, and the big head was
protruded. Its owner, seeing the two standing there, came out.
"Anything wrong?" he asked, advancing towards them in his pyjamas.
"If there's any illness, I'm a medical man. Can I be of use?"
Allerdyke turned sharply, looking the stranger well over. He was not
sure whether the man was an Englishman or a foreigner; he fancied that
he detected a slightly foreign accent. The tone was well-meaning, and
even kindly.
"I'm obliged to you," replied Allerdyke, in his characteristically blunt
fashion. "I'm afraid nobody can be of use. The truth is, I came to join
my cousin here, and I find him dead. Seems to me he's been dead some
time. As you're a doctor, you can tell, of course. Perhaps you'll come
in?"
He led the way back into the bedroom, the other two following closely

behind him. At sight of the dead man the bearded stranger uttered a
sharp exclamation.
"Ah!" he said. "Mr. Allerdyke!"
"You knew him, then?" demanded Marshall. "You've met him?"
The other, who had stooped over the body, bestowing a light touch on
face and hand, looked up and nodded.
"I came over with him from Christiania," he answered. "I met him
there--at a hotel. I had several conversations with him. In fact, I warned
him."
"Warned him? Of what!" tasked Allerdyke.
"Over-exertion," replied the doctor quietly. "I saw symptoms of
heart-strain. That was why I talked with him. I gathered from what he
told me that he was a man who lived a very strenuous life, and I warned
him against doing too much. He was not fitted for it."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Allerdyke, with