It was a prostrate man face downward upon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of throwing a somersault.

So grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his soul.

Not a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we stooped.

Holmes laid his hand upon him, and held it up again, with an exclamation of horror.

The gleam of the match which he struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which widened slowly from the crushed skull of the victim.