Page:The council of seven.djvu/355

 bell. But she listened in vain. In her excitement she got up from the sofa on which she sat. Hardly had she done so when the door opened, and John came into the room.

He was still wearing his overcoat and hat. In his ashen face was a look of burning intensity. They stood a moment looking at each other in a silence that was rather grotesque.

"Darling tell me  what has happened?"

Endor did not answer the question. Or rather, he answered it by taking from a pocket of his overcoat "the late extra" edition of the Evening Press. The front page was draped heavily in thick mourning lines. He folded back the paper, set his finger on the middle column, and then handed it to Helen.

Her head swam round as she read:

TRAGIC DEATH OF SAUL HARTZ

The salient facts of the occurrence were that

about three o'clock this afternoon, shortly after leaving the Imperium Club in Pall Mall, Mr. Hartz was run over and instantly killed. According to eye-witnesses of the accident, which took place at the bottom of the Hay-*market, Mr. Hartz was in the act of crossing from the Carlton Hotel, when he dropped his umbrella in the roadway. As he stooped to retrieve it he was knocked down by a news-*paper van belonging to the Universal Press which came round the corner at that moment.

The uncanny silence which gripped them was broken at last by Endor's high-pitched laugh. "First with the news as usual," he said.