ere
perfunctory compliance with some order of a court in which Mr. Brewer
had an action to get possession of the property as heir to his deceased
sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was made on the day after the
night that Deputy King had unlocked the house for another and very
different purpose. His presence now was not of his own choosing: he had
been ordered to accompany his superior, and at the moment could think of
nothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to the
command.

Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise was not locked,
the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the passage into
which it opened, a confused heap of men's apparel. Examination showed it
to consist of two hats, and the same number of coats, waistcoats, and
scarves all in a remarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat
defiled by the dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equally
astonished, but Mr. King's emotion is not of record. With a new and
lively interest in his own actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed
open a door on the right, and the three entered. The room was apparently
vacant--no; as their eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light
something was visible in the farthest angle of the wall. It was a human
figure--that of a man crouching close in the corner. Something in the
attitude made the intruders halt when they had barely passed the
threshold. The figure more and more clearly defined itself. The man was
upon one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated
to the level of his ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the
fingers spread and crooked like claws; the white face turned upward on
the retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, the mouth
half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stone dead. Yet with the
exception of a bowie-knife, which had evidently fallen from his own
hand, not another object was in the room.

In thick dust that covered the floor were some confused footprints near
the door and along the wall through which it opened. Along one of the
adjoining walls, too, past the boarded-up windows was the trail made by
the man himself in reaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the
body the three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped one of the
outthrown arms; it was as rigid as iron, and the application of a gentle
force rocked the entire body without altering the relation of its parts.
Brewer,