"I was hanging on the side of the table when Barker came hurrying
down. I heard my wife coming, and I ran to the door and stopped
her. It was no sight for a woman. I promised I'd come to her
soon. I said a word or two to Barker--he took it all in at a
glance--and we waited for the rest to come along. But there was
no sign of them. Then we understood that they could hear
nothing, and that all that had happened was known only to
ourselves.
"It was at that instant that the idea came to me. I was fairly
dazzled by the brilliance of it. The man's sleeve had slipped up
and there was the branded mark of the lodge upon his forearm.
See here!"
The man whom we had known as Douglas turned up his own coat and
cuff to show a brown triangle within a circle exactly like that
which we had seen upon the dead man.
"It was the sight of that which started me on it. I seemed to
see it all clear at a glance. There were his height and hair and
figure, about the same as my own. No one could swear to his
face, poor devil! I brought down this suit of clothes, and in a
quarter of an hour Barker and I had put my dressing gown on him
and he lay as you found him.
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