"All right," but there was no answer from No. 7 and 8.

Again and again the porter knocked and called loudly. Still meeting
with no response, he opened the door of the compartment and went in.

It was now broad daylight. No blind was down; indeed, the one narrow
window was open, wide; and the whole of the interior of the compartment
was plainly visible, all and everything in it.

The occupant lay on his bed motionless. Sound asleep? No, not merely
asleep--the twisted unnatural lie of the limbs, the contorted legs, the
one arm drooping listlessly but stiffly over the side of the berth, told
of a deeper, more eternal sleep.

The man was dead. Dead--and not from natural causes.

One glance at the blood-stained bedclothes, one look at the gaping wound
in the breast, at the battered, mangled face, told the terrible story.

It was murder! murder most foul! The victim had been stabbed to the
heart.

With a wild, affrighted, cry the porter rushed out of the compartment,
and to the eager questioning of all who crowded round him, he could only
mutter in confused and trembling accents:

"There! there! in there!"

Thus the fact of the murder became known to every one by personal
inspection, for every one (even the lady had appeared for just a moment)
had looked in where the body lay. The compartment was filled for some
ten minutes or more by an excited, gesticulating, polyglot mob of half a
dozen, all talking at once in French, English, and Italian.

The first attempt to restore order was made by a tall man, middle-aged,
but erect in his bearing, with bright eyes and alert manner, who took
the porter aside, and said sharply in good French, but with a strong
English accent:

"Here! it's your business to do something. No one has any right to be in
that compartment now. There may be reasons--traces--things to remove;
never mind what. But get them all out. Be sharp about it; and lock the
door. Remember you will be held responsible to justice."

The porter shuddered, so did many of the passengers who had overheard
the Englishman's last words.

Justice! It is not to be trifled with anywhere, least of all in France,
where the uncomfortable superstition prevails that every one who can be
reasonably suspected of a crime is held to be guilty of that crime until
his innocence is clearly proved.

All those six passengers and the porter were now brought within the
category of the accused. They were all open to suspicion; they,