The dead man's face was placid.

Very little blood had issued from the wound, and the shot must have been fired with a remarkably steady hand.' 'A room on the top floor of the building, ordinarily unused----' What story was it that Alma Frothingham told last night, of her visit to the office of _Stock and Share_?
Rolfe had not paid much attention to it at the time; now he recalled the anecdote, and was more impressed by its significance.

That room, his first place of business, the scene of poor beginnings, Bennet Frothingham had chosen for his place of death.
Perhaps he had long foreseen this possibility, had mused upon the dramatic fitness of such an end; for there was a strain of melancholy in the man, legible on his countenance, perceptible in his private conversation.

Just about the time when Alma laughingly told the story, her father must have been sitting in that upper room, thinking his last thoughts; or it might be that he lay already dead.
Later issues contained much fuller reports.

The man who found the body had explained his behaviour in going up to the unused room, and it relieved the dark affair with a touch of comedy.