With a little exclamation of surprise and excitement, Godfrey bent
for an instant above the injured hand. Then he turned and looked at
us.
"This man didn't take poison," he said, in a low voice. "He was
killed!"
CHAPTER III
THE WOUNDED HAND
"He was killed!" repeated Godfrey, with conviction; and, at the
words, we drew together a little, with a shiver of repulsion. Death
is awesome enough at any time; suicide adds to its horror; murder
gives it the final touch.
So we all stood silent, staring as though fascinated at the hand
which Simmonds held up to us; at those tiny wounds, encircled by
discoloured flesh and with a sinister dash of clotted blood running
away from them. Then Goldberger, taking a deep breath, voiced the
thought which had sprung into my own brain.
"Why, it looks like a snake-bite!" he said, his voice sharp with
astonishment.
And, indeed, it did. Those two tiny incisions, scarcely half an inch
apart, might well have been made by a serpent's fangs.
The quick glance which all of us cast about the room was, of course,
as involuntary as the chill which ran up our spines; yet Godfrey and
I--yes, and Simmonds--had the excuse that, once upon a time, we had
had an encounter with a deadly snake which none of us was likely ever
to forget.
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