Chapter M: JAMES SANDY ROSE was found sitting at his work-table, his head laid

on his desk. He seemed asleep, and he was dead. The pen had escaped from his fingers, and rolled to the ground, leaving a large blot of ink on the paper. After the word "vivre "[1] comes the first letter of a word that ends in a serpentine scrawl. This letter is doubtless a V, and perhaps, as would have been fairly characteristic of his style, he was going to begin a new phrase with this same word, _Vivre_, when death struck him down.

All this is of small importance. Besides, we are giving a facsimile of the last page of this manuscript whose singular aspect has, no doubt, a psychological value.

It has already been seen that the death of M. J. Sandy Rose was spoken of by the newspapers under the title of "The Mystery of the Rue de Médicis."

Their account, without being altogether inaccurate, was very incomplete. Here is exactly what happened, or at least what I saw and knew.

Sandy Rose called at my rooms almost every day at about five o'clock, on his way to the post. I live in the Rue de Tournon, behind an old garden. We used to go out together, and often dined together. On the 11th of February, as I had not seen him for three or four days, I decided to go to his rooms. It was half-past three. The concierge, at first, dissuaded me from going up, and assured me that M. Sandy Rose was away. A bundle of letters and several telegrams were awaiting him.

"What if he is ill?" I said. "What if he is dead?"

"Oh! But how am I to find out? How am I to open his door? We should have to have a locksmith, witnesses, the commissaire...."

Without answering, I bolted up the stair-case. When I reached the door, on the fifth landing, I rang, knocked very loudly, and then bent to look through the crack, or glue my ear to the keyhole. It was dark, a small iron thing went into my eye. The key was in the door.

At that moment, I heard the voice of the concierge, who had followed me.

"Well! You see!"

"The key is in the door."

"Impossible; it was not there yesterday evening, and he has certainly not come in."

"Look!"

And I turned the key. The door opened. The flat consisted of the kitchen, on the left as one went in, and three rooms opening into each other, along the street. We opened three more doors. The last let us see the spectacle I have described.

The death was recent. The body was cold, but not frozen, and the fingers of the right hand, which was hanging over the arm of the chair, were still supple. Later on the doctor declared that death must have occurred about twelve hours before my arrival.

Two young clerks, brothers, who live in a neighbouring room, came home at this moment. We sent one of them in search of the police, and the other remained with me, while the concierge went back to her lodge.

While waiting for the police to draw up their official statement, I made a mental inventory of my friend's room. Its aspect seemed to me odd. The bed, a great four-posted one, very large and almost sumptuous, the only luxury, moreover, of this sentimental and libertine youth, was in disorder. It told of a night of frenzied passion, or of an attack of hallucinatory fever. The counterpanes were dangling, the pillows were one at the foot and one in the middle of the bed; two candles at the bed-side had burned themselves out. A man's clothes had been flung on a sofa, and among these clothes I found a woman's dress, of antique or rather empire fashion, a sort of tea-gown of spongy white linen, very fine, with a gathered belt, much lacework, and blue and yellow embroideries. I saw besides some plain white silk stockings, yellow garters with paste buckles, and one slipper in blue morocco; I did not find the other.

The man's clothes were those of my friend, who was dressed at the moment in a grey flannel suit and a brown dressing-gown. Nothing could be simpler. But the dress, and the silk stockings? Did Sandy Rose amuse himself with robing his mistress magnificently, before unrobing her? The presence of a woman seemed proved by this theatrical costume. The stockings had been worn; some one had even walked bare-foot in one of them, doubtless looking for the slipper that had slid away under a piece of furniture.

On the mantelpiece, I found a big tortoiseshell comb, a necklace of pearls, no doubt false, another of amethysts, some ancient rings, and two bracelets, one of braided gold, the other of cameos.

I opened a little door. The state of the washing-stand showed that it had been recently used. There were still drops of water on the marble, and the towels were damp. On a comb, I found some woman's hairs, blond, very long; a powder-box was open. A perfume that I could not identify, was floating in this closet, something like peppered, highly peppered, jessamine.

In the fireplace of the room a log was still burning, among dead pieces of coal.

I returned to the table on which was resting the lifeless head of my unfortunate friend. He seemed asleep, and I was glad of it, for, if a tragic story is to be as it should, the dead must seem to sleep.

There was nothing on the table but a quantity of sheets of paper covered with big irregular handwriting, nothing but that and an ink-pot. The pen had fallen down.

At this moment the commissaire arrived with a scribe. Notes were taken. The doctor who had come attested something.

"Natural death?"

"The most natural in the world."

And he pointed first to the bed and then to the writing-table.

"Sexual followed by cerebral excesses. These papers, perhaps, will give us an explanation."

Meanwhile the commissaire, who had opened a drawer, found a will that left everything to me; the doctor, happy to do nothing, stopped putting together the sheets of the manuscript.

"I do not dispute them with you. I have signed. I am off."

My rights were soon legally confirmed. Meanwhile I thought of the woman who had worn the white dress with yellow embroideries and put her feet in the slippers of blue morocco. I sought her and did not find her. Singular rumours went about, set on foot by the journalists. M. Sandy Rose had been strangled by a woman with whom he had spent the night. She had disappeared at dawn, taking money and jewels. I had no difficulty in exposing the absurdity of this hypothesis, firstly because we had noticed no trace of violence on the body of the defunct, and secondly because many precious stones, as well as a quantity of gold pieces, were found in the same drawer as the will, which was not locked.

Little by little there came to be silence concerning the story, and I was alone in sometimes thinking of it.

It is certain that Sandy Rose went home on Thursday morning, the 8th of February, about nine o'clock, accompanied by a woman. He took his letters: no letter or paper of earlier date was found in the Sunday packet. It is also certain that he went out with this woman about midday, and that they returned about eight, this time without speaking to the concierge, without answering her question: "Monsieur Sandy Rose, aren't you going to take your letters?" Finally, from that moment on, the concierge saw no one, neither Sandy Rose nor the lady, whose name she did not know, though, she says, she had noticed her light-coloured, almost white, dress; and adds,

"I was surprised at it, because of the colour." On Friday morning, she knocked, at the hour at which she was accustomed to come and clean out the rooms. She knocked again in the afternoon, and rang the bell; in vain. It was the same on Saturday and Sunday, and she had therefore concluded that he was away, as was not unlikely, for my friend sometimes went to spend a week at Menton, and never went alone.

These little facts, whose accuracy I cannot doubt, do not contradict certain details that have been read in my friend's manuscript, but I am far from offering them as a proof of the veracity of his story. I give on the one hand the manuscript, as the will obliges me, and on the other the result of my inquiry, as friendship demands; that is all.

I must note one last detail. No trace of food was found in the flat, except some paper that had been used in wrapping up cakes, or perhaps a pâté, and six empty champagne bottles. But there is nothing to prove that these relics are contemporaneous with the period that interests us. It is, however, probable enough.

The telegram mentioned on page 36 has not been printed by the _Northern Atlantic Herald_. It is even doubtful if it was ever sent off. At least, the inquiries I have made have been without result.

[1] The last word of the manuscript.

APPENDIX[1]

REMY DE GOURMONT

BY

ARTHUR RANSOME