The engineer did not appear to breathe.
This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.
It was icy cold.
Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.
"The window! Open the window!" he cried.
And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.
"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"
"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.
For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed along the gallery, and darted into the attic.
Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a cadaverous face, dead, too.
"Dash it all! Dash it all!" repeated Mazeroux.
Never, perhaps, in the course of his adventurous career, had Perenna experienced such a knockdown blow. It gave him a feeling of extreme lassitude, depriving him of all power of speech or movement. Father and son were dead! They had been killed during that night! A few hours earlier, though the house was watched and every outlet hermetically closed, both had been poisoned by an infernal puncture, even as Inspector Vérot was poisoned, even as Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.
"Dash it all!" said Mazeroux once more. "It was not worth troubling about the poor devils and performing such miracles to save them!"
The exclamation conveyed a reproach. Perenna grasped it and admitted:
