The man rolled from side to side, convulsively, and tore at the air with clawlike hands. To Peret, he seemed to be grappling with an invisible antagonist that was slowly crushing his life out. His face was blue and horribly distorted: his breath was coming in short, jerky gasps.
Suddenly his tensed muscles relaxed and he lay still. Unable to speak, he could only lift his eyes to Peret's in desperate appeal.
"Dame! You are a sick man, my friend," observed Peret, feeling the man's pulse. "I will run for a physician. But tell me quickly what happened to you, Monsieur."
There was an almost imperceptible movement of the dying man's froth-rimmed lips, and Peret held his head nearer.
"Now, speak, my friend," he entreated. "I am Jules Peret. You know me, eh! Tell me what is the matter with you. Were you attacked?"
"As-sas-sins," gasped the stricken man faintly.
"What?" cried Peret, excitedly. "Assassins!"
The look in Berjet's eyes was eloquent.
"Who are they?" pleaded the detective. "Tell me their names, Monsieur, before it is too late. I will avenge you. I promise you. I swear it. Quickly, Monsieur, their names—"
Berjet murmured something in a voice almost too faint to be audible.
"Dix?" questioned Peret, straining to catch the man's words. "You mean ten, eh?"
With his glazing eyes fixed on the detective, Berjet made a desperate effort to reply, but the effort was in vain. The ghost of a sigh escaped from his lips, a slight tremor shook his frame, and, with a gurgling sound in his throat, he died.
"Peste! What did he mean by that?" muttered Peret, getting to his feet. (Dix is the French word for "ten".) Did he mean he was attacked by ten assassins? The devil! It does not take an army to kill a single man."
"What’s the matter, old chap?" It was the pedestrian whom Peret had observed lighting a cigarette near the corner lamp a few minutes previously. "The old boy looks as if he had had a shot of bootlegger's private stock."
"He has been murdered," returned Peret shortly, after giving the man a keen scrutiny. Then: "Be so kind as to run to the drug store across the street and ask the druggist to send for a physician. Also request him to notify police headquarters that a murder has been committed. Have the notification sent in the name of Jules Peret. Hurry, my friend!"
Without waiting to reply, the man spun on his heel and dashed across the street. Dropping to his knees again, Peret made a hasty but thorough search of the dead man's clothing, but beyond a few stray coins in the pockets of his trousers, found nothing. As he was finishing his examination, the stranger returned, accompanied by the druggist and a physician who had chanced to be in the drug store.
Peret rose to his feet and stepped back to make room for the doctor.
"What's the trouble?" asked Dr. Sprague, a large, swarthy-faced man with a gray Vandyke beard.
"Murder, I'm afraid," replied Peret, pointing at Berjet's motionless body.
Dr. Sprague bent over the inert form of the scientist and made a brief examination.
"Yes," he said gravely, "he is beyond human aid."
"He is dead?"
"Quite."
"Can yon tell me what caused his death?"
"I cannot be positive," replied the physician, "but he bears all the outward symptoms of asphyxiation."
"Asphyxiation?" repeated Peret incredulously.
"Yes."
