"Who says he was murdered?
He is--not very well, it is true, but for all that I can tell, he is sound asleep in bed at this minute." "Sound asleep!" roared the Earl, who had been most positive in his opinion that Curtis must have brought about the Frenchman's death for his own fell purpose.
Otto Schmidt laid a restraining hand on his lordship's shoulder.
"Steady now," he murmured.

"Remember my instructions.

The inquiry is committed to me for the time." "But, confound it, man----" "Yes, this is startling, this changes the whole aspect of the case.
But you see the value of calm and judicious method." The egg-shaped man was certainly entitled to take credit for the disclosure, and seldom failed to do so in many subsequent expositions to admiring friends of a singular case, but he never realized how thoroughly self-deluded the Earl had been by the original blunder.
"But, sir," protested the clerk, "it was never supposed that Mr.de Courtois had been killed.

No one knew who the poor gentleman was at first, because Mr.Curtis's overcoat and his had been accidently exchanged in the flurry and excitement after the crime was committed.
The police found the initials H.R.

H.on his clothing, and that fact led to his being recognized as Mr.Henry R.Hunter, a well-known New York journalist.