At last the doctor returned, looking more cheerful than when he had
left the room. He had given Miss Vaughan an opiate and she was
sleeping calmly; the nervous trembling had subsided and he hoped that
when she waked she would be much better. The danger was that brain
fever might develop; she had evidently suffered a very severe shock.

"Yes," said Godfrey, "she discovered her father strangled in the chair
yonder."

"I saw the body when I came in," the doctor remarked, imperturbably.
"So it's her father, is it?"

"Yes."

"And strangled, you say?"

Godfrey answered with a gesture, and the doctor walked over to the
body, glanced at the neck, then disengaged one of the tightly clenched
hands from the chair-arm, raised it and let it fall. I could not but
envy his admirable self-control.

"How long has he been dead?" Godfrey asked.

"Not more than two or three hours," the doctor answered. "The muscles
are just beginning to stiffen. It looks like murder," he added, and
touched the cord about the neck.

"It _is_ murder."

"You've notified the police?"