a light touch on face and hand, looked up and nodded.
"I came over with him from Christiania," he answered. "I met him there—at an hotel. I had several conversations with him. In fact, I warned him."
"Warned him? Of what?" asked Allerdyke.
"Over-exertion," replied the doctor quietly. "I saw symptoms of heart-strain. That was why I talked with him. I gathered from what he told me that he was a man who lived a very strenuous life, and I warned him against doing too much. He was not fitted for it."
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Allerdyke, with obvious impatience. "Why, I always considered him as one of the fittest men I ever knew!"
"Perhaps you did," said the doctor. "Laymen, sir, do not see what a trained eye sees. The proof in his case is—there!"
He pointed to the dead man, at whom the night-porter was staring with astonished eyes.
Allerdyke stared, too, or seemed to stare. In reality, he was gazing into space, wondering about what had just been said.
"Then you think he died a natural death?" he asked, suddenly turning on his companion. "You don't think there's—anything wrong?"
The doctor shook his head calmly.
"I think he died of precisely what I should have expected him to die of," he answered. "Heart failure. It came upon him quite suddenly. You see, he was in the act of taking off his boots. He is a little fleshy—stout. The exertion of bending over and down—that was too much. He felt a sharp spasm—he sat back—he died, there and then."
"There and then!" repeated Allerdyke mechanically.
