He had wound a
string tightly around his neck, and had used a piece of pencil as
a twister, and so had strangled himself. He did not, however,
betray the hideous look which the popular belief attributes to
those who have died by strangulation. His face was pale, his eyes
and mouth half open, and he had the appearance of one who has
gradually and without much pain lost his consciousness by congestion
of the brain.
"Perhaps he is not quite dead yet," said the doctor. He quickly
pulled out his case of instruments and knelt beside the motionless
body.
This incident seemed to annoy M. Lecoq very much; just as everything
was, as he said, "running on wheels," his principal witness, whom he
had caught at the peril of his life, had escaped him. M. Plantat,
on the contrary, seemed tolerably well satisfied, as if the death
of Robelot furthered projects which he was secretly nourishing, and
fulfilled his secret hopes. Besides, it little mattered if the
object was to oppose M. Domini's theories and induce him to change
his opinion. This corpse had more eloquence in it than the most
explicit of confessions.
The doctor, seeing the uselessness of his pains, got up.
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