"I heard a queer noise, and when I went in, he had fallen forward across the table.

Parkins has rung for Doctor Wilcox." "What sort of a noise ?" Nigel asked.
"It sounded like a shot," the man faltered.
They entered the library, Nigel leading the way.

Lord Dorminster was lying very much as Brookes had described him, but there was something altogether unnatural in the collapse of his head and shoulders and his motionless body.

Nigel spoke to him, touched him gently, raised him at last into a sitting position.

Something on which his right hand seemed to have been resting clattered on to the carpet.