pulled out an old-fashioned gold watch.

"Hm! Only fifty! What's the matter? Had a shock?" he asked
shrewdly.

"Yes," I answered for the porter. "We've both had one. If you are
a doctor, I wish you would look at the man in the berth across,
lower ten. I'm afraid it's too late, but I'm not experienced in
such matters."

Together we opened the curtains, and the doctor, bending down, gave
a comprehensive glance that took in the rolling head, the relaxed
jaw, the ugly stain on the sheet. The examination needed only a
moment. Death was written in the clear white of the nostrils, the
colorless lips, the smoothing away of the sinister lines of the
night before. With its new dignity the face was not unhandsome: the
gray hair was still plentiful, the features strong and well cut.

The doctor straightened himself and turned to me. "Dead for some
time," he said, running a professional finger over the stains.
"These are dry and darkened, you see, and rigor mortis is well
established. A friend of yours?"

"I don't know him at all," I replied. "Never saw him but once
before."

"Then you don't know if he is traveling alone?"

"No, he was not--that is, I don't know anything about him," I
corrected myself. It was my first blunder: the doctor glanced up