The body lay clear of the table,
near the foot of an arm-chair. Instinctively Flack walked on tiptoe to
his chief.
"Is he dead, sir?" he asked.
"Cold and stiff," replied the inspector, in a hushed voice. "He's been
dead for hours."
Flack noted that the body was fully dressed, and he saw a dark stain
above the breast where the blood had welled forth and soaked the dead
man's clothes and formed a pool on the carpet beside him.
Inspector Seldon opened the dead man's clothes. Over his heart he found
the wound from which the blood had flowed.
"There it is, Flack," he said, touching the wound lightly with his
finger. "It doesn't take a big wound to kill a man."
As he spoke the sharp ring of a telephone bell from downstairs
reached them.
"That's Inspector Chippenfield," said Inspector Seldon, rising to his
feet. "Stay here, Flack, till I go and speak to him."
CHAPTER II
"Six-thirty edition: High Court Judge murdered!"
It was not quite 5 p.m., but the enterprising section of the London
evening newspapers had their 6.30 editions on sale in the streets. To
such a pitch had the policy of giving the public what it wants been
elevated that the halfpenny newspapers were able to give the people of
London the news each afternoon a full ninety minutes before the
edition was supposed to have left the press.
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