Page:Braddon--Wyllard's weird.djvu/12

4 Commune, had seen the corpses laid out in long rows in the cemeteries, and piled in bloody heaps in the streets.

"Quite dead, and a blessed thing too," answered the doctor. "I don't believe she has a whole bone in her body. She could only have lingered a little while to suffer agonies. Her neck is broken. Poor little thing! She is quite a young creature and must have been pretty."

Yes, it was a pretty little face, even in the pallor of death. A small retroussé nose; large dark eyes, with long black lashes; pouting, childish lips; a delicately moulded figure, neatly dressed in light-gray alpaca, a linen collar cut low in the front and showing a good deal of the slim white throat, linen cuffs, long thread gloves, and little stuff boots.

"She looks like a furriner," said Mr. Nicholls, the burly farmer who had speculated as to the cause of her death.

"Hadn't somebody better examine her pockets for any papers which may identify her?" said a voice behind Wyllard.

It was the voice of a young man who had been the last to leave the train. He had followed the rest at a few paces' distance, and had only just arrived to look at the dead girl over Wyllard's shoulder.

"You here, Bothwell?" exclaimed Wyllard, turning quickly.

"Yes, I have been in Plymouth all day, and thought I'd get back by your train," answered Bothwell Grahame easily. "Don't you think they ought to examine her pockets?"

"Certainly; but it is a question as to whether it should be done now or later," said Wyllard. "She was evidently travelling alone, poor creature, and she must have been in a compartment by herself, since nobody seems to know anything about her. The chief thing to be done is to get her carried on to Bodmin Road, where there must be an inquest."

Everybody agreed that this was the voice of wisdom. Dr. Menheniot turned out the pocket of the neat alpaca gown. There was nothing but a handkerchief, a little bunch of keys, and a second-class railway ticket for Plymouth; no card-case or purse; not even an old letter to offer a clue to the dead girl's personality. This done, the doctor arranged the poor dislocated form decently, and two sturdy men lifted it from the greenery, and carried it gently up the embankment to the train, where that unconscious clay was laid on the seat of an empty second-class compartment.

"It is the very carriage she was in," said Bothwell, pointing to a torn strip of gray alpaca hanging on the metal handle. "Her gown must have caught on the handle as she fell, and this shred was left behind."

Bothwell gave the bit of alpaca to Dr. Menheniot.

"You can show that to the Coroner," he said; "of course, you will be a witness."